Contradicting Mission
by Chelsee
Summary: (Complete) Son Gohan finds himself cast into an highly unwilling situation. Now with final Author's Note
1. CM01

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 1**

"Gohan?"

Kuririn's voice came from a phone that swung back and forth, dangling from it's cord.

No answer.

"Gohan, hello?"

The room was empty, but if anyone were present they would swear that it felt like someone had been in it seconds earlier.

No answer.

"Are you there? Answer me if you're there!"

A phone continued to swung back and forth as though someone had just dropped it, but no one was there.

"_Someone pick up the phone! Gohan? Ch_ichi? Helloooo?!"

The phone floated up on it's own will and hung itself upon the receiver with a quiet click.

* * *

"Where am I?"

The words, born of confusion, were left unanswered. The lips the words had come out of were pressed together in a firm line, set almost unnaturally in a young face. The boy's eyes, black as sleet and glittering with intelligence, were deep, wrought with visions that one so young should never have seen, yet had. And those eyes were windows to a mind that should have been insane but was not.

Short, wild black hair dangled just above the boy's vision, swaying in a breeze that the boy's skin could not feel. Every muscle on the boy's body was toned to perfection, yet incredibly proportional to one as strong as he.

He was Son Gohan, first born of Son Goku. A half Saiya-jin, half Human. The strongest fighter in the known universe. 

He had no answer to his question.

He realized his hand was still raised as though he were talking on the phone, cradling the thin air against his ear from where only seconds ago he had been talking with Kuririn. That had been mere seconds ago, he had been standing the familiar surroundings of his living room. Now, nothing around him looked familiar, or natural. It was just a never ending flat plane of grass.

"Where am I..... am I...... am....." his own voice echoed back at him stronger than it had come out, the sound waves bouncing off of unseen walls, returning to him, tearing at his body. He flinched. The sound hurt, like scorching ripples of chi than ripples of sound, all aimed at his head. His head throbbed, his ears rang, his breath caught in his throat. He clutched his head, nearly tearing out his own hair in the sudden agony that washed over him.

Once the sound had passed, there was a complete, unnerving still. His body felt as though the pain had never happened.

Then, slow and gentle, a breeze passed over his body, whipping his hair and running chills down his back. '_Not even the wind feels right', he_ thought to himself, wincing when even his thoughts echoed around in his skull for a few seconds..... or minutes....... Time felt as though it passed wrong here.

"Do you know where you are?"

A voice, so familiar yet totally indistinguishable asked him, rolled over him, pushed him around, made him stumble.

"No." Gohan answered, cringing as his answer raked back over his body. "no no no....."

"Silence, your words will hurt you."

A gentle, vicious voice. A kind, malicious voice. A caring, evil voice.

"Why?" Gohan asked, cradling his head as his voice attacked him. "why, why, why......"

"It is the way here."

The voice continued to push and shove, never letting the small figure get his footing even though he was standing perfectly still as he listened. It was terrifying and calming, tearing his body as it put it together, making him want to kill and be killed.

All in a horrifying, beautiful way.

"Are you ready to make your journey?"

He wanted desperately to say no and yes at the same time, but he fought for his own control.

"What journey?" he risked, agonizing as the pain heightened and subsided. "journey journey journey......."

"You don't learn... I'll show you."

* * *

"Now where am I?" Gohan asked again, relieved when his voice sounded normal and didn't echo back onto and into his body. He looked around to see only blackness, but not as though there was lack of light, but rather, lack of substance for the light to bounce off of.

"In the room starting your quest."

"Quest, journey... I need to know what you're talking about!" his patience was growing shorter as his curiosity and confusion gave way to need of information, "What do you want with me?!"

"I need you.......," the voice stopped as though interrupted, "You should meet your fellow questors. I'll explain everything then."

"Wait!" Gohan called, but the presence of the voice, whatever it may be, vanished.

"Where am I?" a very real voice asked behind him. The boy turned, his already surprised face turned to near shock as a familiar figure popped into existence. A white tail whipped the air, attached to a small, white body. Glittering purple accents and thin purple lips, set in a pale, doll like face, all of the features jerked the boy into painful memories that even now haunted his dreams.

And, attached to the dreams and memories was a name.

Freeza.

But why? Why was he her? Did he have something to do with this... quest? The boy pushed and shoved disordered thoughts around in his head.

The ruby eyes of this new arrival turned on Gohan, "Who are you?"

"I'm-" the boy started to reply.

"Where am I?"

Both Freeza and the boy turned to see who had just spoken. The youth's eyes widened once again as he saw yet another familiar face came into existence before them. And yet again all memories were unpleasant. Perhaps best described as a gnome or dwarf, with pointed ears and even pointier teeth. Large eyes set deep under a high ridged brow and small spots doting his temple, the figures name echoed through the boy's memories like a sour note.

Garlic. Garlic Junior.

The demon opened his mouth to speak, most likely to ask a question similar to the one Freeza had issued when a third voice spoke up.

"What is this place?" A deep voice, resonating with charisma came forth from a man much larger than the room's other inhabitants. The man's face, haloed in a massive shock of orange hair, was marred by a deep gash, long since healed over. Deep, brooding eyes and deep blue skin decorated in gypsy styled clothes brought to surface fresher memories of pain and helplessness as Gohan beheld the man. The man's name that had been so branded in his mind quickly related to the face.

Bojack? Bojack? Why are all these people here? Why am I here?

The boy's rattled mind can up with millions of questions, but deep down he would settle for just one answer, the answer to the very questions the enemies around him had asked.

_Where am I?_

_What is this place?_

Before anyone could speak further, a fifth person, a man, entered the room, coming into view out of nowhere, but very obviously entering in a way much more intentional than the way everyone else had come. The man had a thin, delicate face, a long slender nose and high cheek bones. His eyes never seemed to remain one color, flashing from stunning blue to brilliant purple to emerald green. His hair, whiter than the cleanest snow or the fluffiest clouds, was noticeably long, spanning down his gray robe to the back of his knees, the hair that hung over his forehead seemed to try to hide the intensity of his eyes, yet could not.

"This is the room of nonexistence, to answer your mutual question."

All four people in the room winced. Gohan immediately recognized it as _that_ voice. Even in this room, where his own voice didn't seem to attack him, that voice was still as full as ever. Tugging and pulling, dripping with want and giving everything away. A quick glance around the room proved to the boy that he wasn't the only one affected.

"You're the one that was messing with my head, weren't you?!" Freeza was the first to exclaim, confirming Gohan's assumption that they had all been plucked from their own little states of reality and drawn and cast into this unnatural place.

"Indeed, that was me," the man said, his eyes fading to deep sea gray, "But I was not 'messing with your head' as you put it. I was merely trying to keep you quiet while I was talking. But it seemed too... cruel. Besides, none of you were cooperating. But do not interrupt me further," his eyes suddenly flashed a red straight from the depths of hell, "I could always take you back to the fields of silence."

All present became quite still.

"Now, listen and listen well. My name is Larkas," the man said, his eyes flitting back to gray with small ripples of purple, "Your timeline is being torn to shreds even as we speak. You will all cease to exist if you do not comply and fix the problem."

"What should it matter?" Bojack suddenly spoke up, ignoring the red flashing over Larkas's eyes again, "I'm already dead. He's dead, too," he jerked a thumb toward Freeza, "I've seen him in Hell before, if I'm not mistaken. And I'm pretty sure he's somewhere along those lines too," he gestured toward Garlic, "And he's probably-"

Only now did the giant's eyes land on Gohan.

"_And what the hell is he doing here_?!"

Gohan held a fist to his mouth and coughed quietly, "I would also like to know what I'm doing here..."

Larkas opened his mouth to speak when he was interrupted by Freeza's quiet, yet commanding voice, "Why? Who is he? His clothes remind me of-"

"His clothes are just like-" Garlic started to say.

"My name is Son Gohan," the boy stated quietly, his eyes mostly closed. He did not like all the attention he was receiving.

"Well, now that we have that established," Larkas grunted, the red in his eyes deepening to a dangerous burning ochre.

"Son Gohan?! Like the brat of that Saiya-jin?!" Freeza's eyes widened, then pinched at the corners in hatred.

"I warn you all once more before I resort to more drastic measures...," Larkas said quietly, his eyes starting to turn black.

"Perhaps being brought here will give me the chance to-" Garlic started to say.

Suddenly, everyone save the white haired man collapsed to their knees, clutching their heads and wailing in pain. The louder they wailed the more agony they experienced, rolling and shrieking on the ground like one possessed.

"Now will you all cease this aggravating noise?" the robed man asked, carefully stepping back as Freeza writhed toward him.

No one was capable of making a recognizable word in their current state, and Larkas waited still a few moments more before allowing his eyes to drift from black to blue. The squirming bodies stopped their displays of pain as they lay, heaving and gasping on the dark.

"Why-," Gohan attempted asking, hand pressed against his rapidly beating heart, his voice raw.

Larkas clipped him off, "If any of you say one more word I shall start the pain all over again, only I won't stop until you are all unconscious or dead."

The boy closed his mouth. The other three bit their tongues.

"Now, as I was saying, your reality will cease to exist and I don't care if you want to or not, you all _will_ fix it. Your reality and my reality are too closely related; if yours were to collapse, it would make ours unstable as well. It is my duty to make sure that doesn't happen. You see, I come from a planet that is the center of the universe, unlike yours that has galaxies where several heavenly bodies rotate around a star, ours is only one giant galaxy. And the center is a planet. And on that planet, I am Kami."

_Kami?_ Gohan felt a sudden sense of horror. _How could a god willingly hurt someone like this?_

As though reading his young mind -- and, perhaps, he did -- Larkas turned his intense eyes to look at Gohan. The youth pressed his lips together.

"If your dimension knew what was happening, perhaps your Kami would have resorted to the same thing. But our reality has no saviors like to protect it. None with the power remotely _near_ the likes of you. There is no one that could save us. You think I _want_ to be wasting my time in this room instead of watching over the planet trusted in my care? Certainly not! I am desperate, though. Time is running out and I'm willing to do anything to protect what I hold dear."

Gohan's thoughts silently drifted to Dende. Would that young new Kami do the same if he were in the same position? Gohan entirely help but to wonder if he wouldn't.

"Good, now perhaps I should give you your orders."

Suddenly, the darkness of the room around them swirled around and around until it turned into the vacuum of space, black emptiness and bright pinpoints of starts dotting everywhere Son Gohan looked. Some planets were close enough to make out different details; green planets with long mountain ranges, blue planets of crystal water swirling under huge masses of clouds.

Gohan forgot to be afraid as he admired the raw beauty of space. No matter how many times he's seen it, no matter if he had looked for collective hours from his planet's surface, or from the window of a space ship. Space was, in every way, awe inspiring and radiant.

Looking back, the boy saw that he was still standing in the room of nonexistence, as were the other three people he was abducted with. But one side of the room seemed to have collapsed, revealing the heavenly spectacle. Looking back outward, Gohan watched with a shamelessly gaping mouth as he saw a shooting star go careening past his vantage point.

All four of them gasped in surprise when the space suddenly started flying by them, stars, suns, planets, asteroids, all reduced to bright gleaming streaks and smears of color before vanishing from sight. The light flashed faster and faster, over Gohan's face, gleaming in his eyes a blinding blue from a passing planet, then a split second of black, then a flash of yellow from a sun. A cosmic strobe light flashed before them.

They were thrown to a stop just as suddenly as they had started, now in the outter atmosphere of a planet that took up most of their view. The planet wasn't the loveliest there was, though it seemed to have sustenance, water, clouds, splotches of green and brown. It was a rather tiny planet compared to Earth, but still impressive.

"Behold the planet Aeesu," the Kami said.

"Aeesu?" Freeza suddenly spoke up, clipped in voice, elegant in his mannerism, "Impossible. That planet was destroyed fifty years ago. I should know, I was there. Planet Aeesu is-"

"Your home planet, I know," Larkas said, he folded his hands behind his back and looked out at the planet, "This tiny planet is the reason for all of our problems, the reason for reality's now shaky existence, and the reason that you are all here today."

Everyone looked at him inquisitively as he spoke the next words, "You see, this planet was targeted and destroyed six hundreds years before it was supposed to be. We don't know who did it, or how. All we know is that you four have to put a stop to it. Your mission: Save planet Aeesu."

**To be continued........**

**Contradicting Mission**** -- ****Next Part**

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	2. CM02

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 2**

Save planet Aeesu. That was their mission. How were they going to do it? When was the planet going to be destroyed? Who was going to be doing the destroying? How long would it take? Not even the Kami Larkas knew. And all the while they would have to work with their greatest enemies?

Son Gohan decided right then and there that he would not like this. Start to finish, he had a premonition that he would be miserable. He fidgeted from one foot to the other as he anxiously worked up millions of questions, each desperate to be answered, but didn't dare open his mouth.

Larkas didn't seem very tolerant of questions. 

Nevertheless, the boy had opened his mouth and squeaked the first half of the word 'but' before he caught himself.

The Kami slowly turned his eyes, now a clear bluish color, to stare at him. The dark pupils in the center were penetrating and sharp as a well honed knife. Gohan quickly swallowed the question that had tried to claw its way to the surface like a crazed demon and turned his dark eyes onto the floor, folding his hands behind his back. An uncomfortable silence hung heavily in the air.

Freeza kept shifting his balance from one foot to the other as he watched his claw like feet; Bojack stared out at the view of planet Aeesu; casting weary, suspicions glances at Gohan. Garlic stewed and glared -- discretely, sure -- at Larkas. He didn't like Kamis. The current situation wasn't helping much.

Bojack itched his arm. Freeza lashed his tail with a whip sound. Larkas kept staring at Gohan, who was squirming under the intense color changing scrutiny as though he felt guilty for having almost asked a question. Bojack started to carefully inspect the string of one of his necklaces and picked a hair off of his chest.

"All right, fine. You win. What's your question?"

All four of them jumped at the sudden command Larkas had issued.

"Me?" Gohan asked hesitantly, putting a hand against his chest, looking around the room as though he might find someone to explain something to him.

"Yes you. You look like your going to explode any minute if you don't release some of the questions swimming around in your head, so just say them," he commanded, "Our sources say you're remarkably intelligent. Let's hear a destined-to-be scholar's well thought out musings."

Well, that certainly increased the pressure the boy was under. Was the Kami expecting an ingenious question? A well thought out, carefully worded, thought provoking stream of art in words? Gohan certainly hoped not because at the moment most of his questions possessed only one syllable. _Why? Where? Who? When?_

"Ah...," he said, suddenly feeling devastatingly self-conscious. He cast hesitant glances around the dark room, suddenly wishing with all his heart and soul that he could have just _one_ person he knew to smile reassuringly at him. Naturally, he received soul shattering scowls from all corners, "Well, I just wanted to know why. Why are _we_ supposed to do it?"

Bojack raised an eyebrow at the question, Garlic nodded his head at the legitimacy and Freeza continued to scowl. All three turned to see if Larkas would answer. The Kami looked angry. His eyebrows were knotted, his eyes brooding.

"A simplistically good question," Larkas said, and his eyes drifted to neon green. Gohan relaxed a hair, "We were looking for certain people that would help out with the mission. We carefully studied this realities past and found some rather... odd occurrences."

Everyone was perfectly able to relate to _that_ statement. They had all had their fair share of strangeness.

"And as it turned out, most of the people I required were dead. Naturally this was no good. I needed them alive," Larkas considered and reconsidered, his eyes flashing wildly from one bright color to another, "So, I decided to use _ghost-link_. This technique allows a Kami to attach spirits onto a living soul and borrow a tiny bit of life from them. Like possession, only the spirit gets their original body back instead of living in the same one as the host."

"So I'm possessed?" the boy's voice cracked at the most disagreeable news.

Larkas gave him a look and Gohan clamped his mouth shut immediately, biting his tongue in the literal sense and adding to the random madness of his current situation. For a generally quiet kid, it was harder than he thought to remain silent.

"In order for the link to work I needed to find an agreeable host," he gave Gohan a look to keep him from saying 'but I didn't agree!'

"In order for the whole linking process to work, I needed someone nearly opposite the spirit in every way, yet knows them well. Since it's hard to find someone opposite in the physical sense, I searched for a contradicting state of mind. Son Gohan, your pure heart and shining soul gleamed from one side of the universe to the other. And since the spirits of my required subjects are more that a little questionable, you were a perfect choice. I wouldn't have chosen you if you had never met them."

"But... why do you need _them_?" Gohan asked, hoping that his question would be answered instead of punished.

"Because," Larkas continued, not seeming the least bit irritable that the boy had spoken again, "I need Freeza because he knows the planet; it's rather doubtful you would be able to find your way over Aeesu-sei on your own. That and he was the only Aeesu-jin that happened to know someone with a pure heart."

Gohan nodded his head slowly, "That makes sense I guess but why the other two?"

"To date, Garlic, the second, is the only known person in both of our realities to have immortality. I thought this fact might come in useful and handy. Don't you?"

Gohan pressed his lips together despondently and, though he had a feeling what the answer would be, asked, "And Bojack?"

"Three is an important number when dealing with the dead," the Kami said, flicking his long hair from behind his back to rest softly on his shoulder, "And I thought some extra muscle power for the grunt work might come in handy."

It was pretty obvious that Bojack was insulted that the Kami felt his phenomenal strength was so despicable as to be referred to as 'grunt work.' His blue face turned a shade darker. He was a smart man, however, and knew when to keep his fumes in check... most of the time.

"If you wanted powerful, deceased warriors that that knew... me-," he obviously did not appreciate being referred to as 'pure', "-why not ask Cell?" Gohan found that he spat the name out with more malice than he expected, "He was even stronger than Bojack."

"Don't think I didn't consider it, Son Gohan," Larkas tilted his head forward in a warning way, "But I did take your personal opinions into mind as much as I could. I had a feeling that neither you or Cell would agree to work together no matter how much pain and persuasion I threatened you with."

Gohan agreed mentally, though remained still.

"What makes you think we'll agree to do what you want?" Garlic finally asked. He had been keeping his mouth carefully shut, for if anyone knew about patience it was him, considering his long, _long_ stay in the Dead Zone, but things were going too far. He hated Kamis. Having this one simply assume he was only there to serve was too much for the demon and he had to speak out his disapproval.

"Agreed. Or what if we say we'll help," Freeza cut in, arms crossed, head tilted down threateningly, "and once we're really back and alive we gang up, kill the kid, and go on with our nasty little lives?" He was, notably, mocking the Kami's reference to them as being 'evil'.

Gohan didn't even flinch at the mention of his own demise. He knew, though with no real pride in the knowledge, that he could take them all on if he needed to, even if it did mean resorting to using his frightening ultimate power.

That didn't mean he liked hearing it. He hoped deep down that this was all a really warped dream -- which he had been having a lot of lately. But the shadow of pain in his head from previous punishment Larkas had dealt out was more than enough to convince him this was real. Either way he was ready to accept it. Far too many strange things had happened to him in his short life for much to phase him anymore.

Still, he wanted to go home.

_I'm hungry..._ The simple, out of the blue thought popped into Gohan's head from somewhere deep in his mind. When he thought about it, he realized he had missed lunch, or should be eating it at that very moment instead of sitting in that dark room with his hated enemies. Such a primitive need, yet the boy knew it could pose a problem in the future. He hoped he would get a chance to eat before he went.

"Because," Larkas started to answer Freeza's question, interrupting Gohan's suddenly screaming bodily needs, "It's Son Gohan's living spirit that keeps you ticking as we speak. If that boy were to die, you and Bojack would return to the afterlife, and Garlic would return to his own personal hell."

"And I'm stronger than before," Gohan found himself saying. He stared down at his own mouth, curious as to why it had chosen to become competitive._ Must be the hunger kicking in._

"How much stronger could you have possibly gotten?" Freeza asked, tilting his chin up as he spoke.

Gohan's eyes became harder, and he found a tart reply attempting to creep to the surface.

"If you all continue this bickering, I shall be forced to take appropriate action."

The Kami's threat silenced all four of them immediately.

"It would do all of you good to keep in mind that this task doesn't only involve me and my realities future, but your own. And yes, though you two may be dead, you still exist. Still feel. The afterlife is just a longer written chapter of your actual life. And even you, Garlic. You exist, you are aware, you caused your own unique ripple in time, did you not? If you don't go on this mission, you will never have existed. You should be grateful that I am giving you this chance."

The Kami turned his gaze to Gohan to see if the boy was going to take a stab at rebellion as well, but the young halfling remained discrete.

"Son Gohan," Larkas said, the lilting frustration in his voice that he had used when addressing the three black hearted individuals gone, replaced with an almost comforting tone. Hell, it was downright friendly.

"Sir?" the boy asked, nearly as disturbed by the Kami's kind sounding voice as he was by his harsher one. When people usually changed their tone that fast they had bad things up their sleeves. Painful things.

"Come here," Larkas commanded and raised a hand. Even more disturbed than before, the boy slowly approached, watching carefully to see if he was suddenly going to be attacked, body tense. At four feet away -- for he deeply didn't want to go any closer, as any less distance and he would be in range of the Kami's long arms -- Gohan stopped.

When the Kami spoke, it was dreadfully official, "Son Gohan, having three extra souls attached to yours can put a strain on the body. That is one reason that I am so grateful you are as strong as you are, for if you were not, I don't think you could handle it. The effects and weight of these other souls cannot be felt here, but once I put you out there," he gestured to the planet, "It may be very heavy at first. You will adapt and become used to it, but it may take a while."

Gohan nodded his head, but silently wished that Piccolo-san were there with him, just to have someone to talk to. Or Kuririn-san. Even Vegita-san would be better company than being alone.

Boy, away from home for an hour and I'm already home sick. Gohan took some amusement as well as sadness at this thought.

"So to help your body handle the strain, I shall heal it," the Kami said, raising his hand and letting it rest lightly on Gohan's head. The boy fidgeted. It was a seldom few that Gohan felt comfortable with that close to him. He felt closed in.

"Heal? But I'm not hurt-"

"Not immediately, no. You're the healthiest being in this universe and mine, but your body is still in considerably miserable shape. Now hold still and relax for a second."

Gohan tried to do as he was told, but holding still was the last thing he felt like doing. He was more pressed to keep his mind under control. At this close proximity the boy was sure the Kami would be able to read his mind. He didn't even bother trying to relax. He was actually trying to stay tense in preparation for the unknown.

At first, nothing happened. He felt nothing but the cold hand of the Kami rested lightly on his forehead. That's where it started. His head. 

It was a warm, rolling feeling, dipping into his skin like warm water. It pressed over his scalp, gently tingling each hair as it rolled off the back of his head and over his face. It felt so much like water that Gohan held his breath as it began to creep down over his face, but couldn't help but inhale in pleasure as his eyes relaxed under the warm feeling. It traveled over his nose, straightening out the small bends and lumps resulting from hundreds of broken noses going without proper treating, left to heal on their own while other, more pressing injuries were addressed.

Setting his jaw better, it traveled down his neck, and warmed and relaxed trick muscles and improperly healed collar bones. Furthering down, it dissolved scar tissue internally and externally into smooth, durable skin. Hard, lumpy fissures in his ribs from multiple breakings were smoothed out till they were as soft as silk. The boy took a deep breath with his new ribs, ribs that had never been broken, yet were as strong as they were when they had been.

Tingling through wrongly healed internal injuries, rearranging organs to more agreeable places, and working down through his leg muscles. Pinched nerves, crooked bones, injuries that he hadn't thought about for years as well as ones that might stay fresh in his mind for the remainder of his life. The warmth slid down into his boots, caressing his ankles and carefully administering to each little toe. Then it vanished.

Slowly Gohan opened his eyes to find that the Kami had removed his hand from the his head.

"How...?" the boy's voice was soft, sounding sharper to his newly healed ears. He never would have thought his ears had been injured in battle, but they certainly hadn't felt this good in a long time, if ever.

"Senzu beans aren't truly meant for healing," Larkas said calmly, "They are meant to restore a person to their full power. That just happens to require healing one if their hurt. They don't heal efficiently, though they do it quickly."

Gohan nodded his head in acknowledgment, marveling at how fluidly his neck moved. Perhaps he wasn't paying a good attention as he should, but he couldn't help himself; it felt so _good_.

"And as for the little Nameksei-jin Kami of your planet..."

"Hmm?" Gohan asked, trying hard to pay attention as he watched his hands clench into fists and unclench smoothly. His palms were still as rough as ever, able to put flatly against an active chainsaw blade without a scratch, yet the joints and sinews felt so loose, so _smooth!_ "What about Dende?"

"He is indeed a talented healer, especially at his tender age. But I am far older than he, with far more experience. So his healings were amateur Only fixing the most immediate problems of the body and even then it was inadequate healings... How do you feel, Son Gohan?"

Gohan carefully ran his hand along the back of his neck, feeling for the tell tale twist where it had broken when he was very young. The irregular curvature was gone. He slid his hand along his rib cage, feeling for the parts where he could feel and, in some places, see the uneven, abused ribs of a fighter. They were all perfectly aligned.

Freeza, Bojack and Garlic all watch curiously and skeptically. They didn't know exactly what was going on, but they understood the gist.

"I feel good. Very good... but...," the boy forced his mind to be practical, "All those broken and healed bones have helped me over the years. When bones are broken and healed, the healed part is stronger than the actual bone."

The Kami was silent a moment, studying the boy's face, before saying slowly, "I'm glad you weren't blinded by the feeling of having a perfect body," Gohan flinched at the term 'perfect body', "But don't worry. That extra durable material found in knitted bones had been grafted into your whole skeletal structure, making protection against injury more widespread. I just worked out the irregularities."

"Oh.....," the youth inspected his arms, carefully searching out his known scars and taking more and more delight in being unable to find them, "Thank you."

"Indeed," Larkas waited a moment more for the boy to get used to his now unscathed body, "But I'm afraid that's all we have time for. Now you must be on your way. And remember, Son Gohan."

Gohan looked the Kami in the eyes, sensing the importance of the next statement.

"You must have three evil souls connected to you at all times. If one of the three in your charge should die, I can't reattach them. I'll have to find another evil soul to connect. I think you know which candidate I'm looking at here."

Gohan nodded, swallowing a large, thick lump of a strong emotion, "Yes. Cell. I... really want to avoid that."

"I know, so try to keep those three out of trouble," Larkas grinned for the first time, and Gohan was pleasantly surprised to find that the smile suited his face much better than the scowl. And at that second the boy wondered what the Kami was like normally. Did he smile often? Did he laugh a lot? Did he heal the warriors of his reality? Was there a devil in his reality? Was the devil like Piccolo or Garlic? What troubles had his reality seen?

These questions Gohan stored in the back of his memory in case he ever had a chance to ask them. Maybe he would someday visit that other reality. Maybe he wouldn't.

"I'm ready to go now," Gohan said, straightening his posture, squaring his shoulders; trying to look braver than he felt.

"I know," Larkas said, his smile fading slightly as he looked the boy's body over once, as though regretting that he was sending such a child into such a vital mission, "The only thing I can tell you about the destruction of Aeesu-sei is that the people who intend to destroy it are _already on_ the planet. They are incredible warriors, so beware."

"I will. Thank you for giving us the chance to set things right."

Things in their sight started to haze as though all four of them were passing out in unison. The last things Gohan remembered hearing and seeing were of Kami Larkas smiling sadly.

_Take care, Son Gohan. Take care._

**To be continued.....**

**Previous Part**** -- Contradicting Mission -- Next Part**

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	3. CM03

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 3**

When Son Gohan opened his eyes again, he was no longer in the pitch blackness of the room he had closed them in. In all truth, he hadn't _expected_ to be, nor to the place he was in now. 

He was more thinking that, maybe, just maybe, it had all been a dream. And he hoped and prayed so hard that he convinced himself he would open his eyes to see the familiar surroundings of his room, from the _all too_ familiar desk that sat to the right of his bed, now getting a tad too small for his longer legs, to the cream colored wall to the direct left of his bed, to the poster of Arale-chan on his far wall by the door.

It certainly was not that which he saw. It was an atmosphere. Not a ceiling. A clean, slightly purple shaded sky; dotted with fluffy little white clouds. For a moment Gohan had the sleepy thought that he was still dreaming and that any second now he would feel his mother gently shaking his shoulder in an attempt to rouse him. He closed his eyes again, waiting to feel his mother's hand on his arm.

And then there it was. A small, strong, slender fingered hand was shaking him. Perhaps it was being rougher than usual. Gohan groaned tiredly and rolled over, ignoring the shaking hand, and mumbling, "Not now, Kaasan... I'm still dreaming."

"Kaasan? Hah, that's a laugh."

The voice made the boy jump straight into the air and land skidding on his feet, every muscle in his body coiled to deadly tightness. It _wasn't_ his mother, that was for sure!!

"Freeza...," he said, feeling more perplexed than anything.

"Certainly not your mother!" the small white alien made a nasty snort.

"What about his mother?" The both of them turned their heads to find Bojack and Garlic approaching, each similarly confused as Gohan.

"Kid thinks I'm his mother," Freeza said with a smirk.

Gohan didn't even bother retaliating, be it verbal or physical, as he forced himself to abandon his defensive stance. His body still felt refreshed and vigorous, strong, durable and agile as ever from the Kami's healing.... but there was something else. A new weight, different and slightly uncomfortable, like something was nagging and pulling at him with the darkness of a shadow and just as elusive. It felt like the very shadow of death.

_This is what it feels like to have three deceased evil warriors leeching on your soul_. He did not like what his mind was saying. Eyeing the three evils of the past in case they decided to try attacking, the boy noted that they were each in impeccable shape. 

Garlic, in his miniature form, was wearing the robe with part of his name on the front in kanji with his white cape hanging down over his small shoulders. The _last_ time Gohan had seen him, he recalled, though he didn't remember all the details too well, was when he'd been reeling helplessly into his own made hell -- he had been in his gargantuan form with only a pair of shredded pants to claim as his dress. 

Bojack's clothes were also in mint condition, his hair once again contained back in the scarf wrapped around his head. His cape had returned as well, and there wasn't a hair out of place on him.

And Freeza........

"Hey," Gohan suddenly said, looking closer at the Aeesu-jin, "When did you detransform?"

All eyes suddenly riveted to look at the Aeesu-jin, who, in turn, was looking down at his own body. Indeed, his body had returned to his original form; short, stocky, accented with two miniature stubs of horns, and partially pink skin.

"I...... don't know." Freeza looked just as confused about his sudden change as anyone else. Slowly, however, something seemed to dawn on his face. "Oh, wait. That's right, this is Aeesu-sei."

And he left it at that, as though stating their location would explain everything. All three of them waited for him to continue, but he did not. An uncomfortable silence -- which Gohan had a feeling he would have to start getting used to -- crept over them.

"So.......," Gohan said after a moment had gone by, "Why are you in your first form?"

Freeza started to grumble, "Stupid uneducated-"

"Watch it," the halfling said warningly, "Just answer the question."

Glowering, Freeza explained, "Aeesu-jin are born with the ability to transform, and with each transformation comes phenomenal power."

Despite himself, the scientist in Gohan nodded, eager to know more about a new species.

"Since Aeesu-jin children cannot control their powers in their youth, early scientists manipulated the planet's atmosphere to not only prohibit transformation, but to also de-evolve them in case they had transformed off-planet and come back."

Gohan wanted to ask more questions; his natural curiosity was trying to tear its way loose from his mind. It was all he could do to beat it into submission and shove it toward the back of his thoughts.

Gohan decided, instead, to not reply at all, and started pacing in deep thought, He hadn't gotten three steps, however, before he froze, his eyes wide, as though he saw something no one else could. He stepped backwards three steps in the exact places he has stepped before. Then he walked forward again. Then backward. Then forward again.

"What the hell are you doing, kid?" Bojack asked as Gohan continued to rock back and forth from his front foot to his back foot. The boy didn't answer, or even acknowledge that the man had spoken, as he stopped the absurd movement and looked behind him and down. A flash of brown fur, a quiet, lashing sound.

"...The hell?" Bojack asked even as Garlic and Freeza's eyes widened.

"My...," the boy didn't finish his sentence.

"Tail?" Bojack asked; obviously he was the least prepared to see such an appendage.

And it was indeed a tail.

"Huhn," Gohan said, suddenly fascinated and excites as he rested his new limb in his palm, reminiscing over it like an old friend, "I guess Kami Larkas's healing brought it back as well." Just as suddenly as he had shifted to fascination, his young features grew into hesitation, then regret. "Wonder if I should cut it off again..."

Freeza's eyes widened at these words, "You don't think you should keep it? I thought you Saiya-jin worshiped your tails."

The boy shrugged and scratched the back of his neck, "Probably. I don't. The only thing I know about tails is that they can be a fatal weakness in a fight, and are only good for full moon transformations. And who needs oozaru when one can go Super Saiya-jin?"

Freeza wilted a little, "So you can go Super Saiya-jin too, huh? Damn, but I should have known. I suppose Vegita can as well by now?"

"Hai," Gohan said, allowing himself a touch of smug pride he felt he was entitled to. His tail curled around his wrist. He had forgotten he was holding it. He looked at it thoughtfully for a second, then grinned with decision as he lashed his tail back behind him with a crack, "Maybe I will keep it for a while... I could always cut it off later."

"Whatever, kid," Bojack mumbled, dismissing the whole concept. Things were nuts as it was, why shouldn't the kid have a tail?

"I asked before and I'll ask again," Gohan said quietly, "What do we do now?"

* * *

Sunow jogged down the corridor as fast as he dared without drawing attention, his long thick tail occasionally slapping against his thighs in his haste. His short, stubby horns glinted each time he passed under one of the florescent lights lining the ceiling in the well lit hall. He ignored the occasional curious glance from other Aeesu-jin he passed as he hurried toward his goal.

To most people, the halls would be nothing but an insolvable, insufferable maze, with no start or finish or rhyme or reason in-between. To Sunow, it was home. Any other surroundings would be too simple to his liking, as it would to most Aeesu-jin. It was a natural surrounding for them. Their species had evolved from mountain lizards, living deep underground in caves and caverns that spread miles and miles into the mountains. In a subconscious level, the narrow, twisted hallways always made and Aeesu-jin more comfortable.

At the moment, however, Sunow did not feel comfortable. He wished he did. Deep in the underground halls of his planet, he wished he felt as comfortable and confident as he normally did. He felt down right nervous.

There were many things not going right in his life. The first and foremost being his current destination. Heng.

No one, either off planet or native knew exactly who officially ran Heng. It was a Judicial system, a Military and a law administration. On the top. But like so many things that seem to look good at one glance, Heng, too, had it's darker side. In it's underbellies, the planet's lower class inhabitants dwelled, distributing their own brand of narcotics and stolen goods; their existence known full well yet tolerated as part of the existing society. Besides, everyone had to make a living.

A living. That was Sunow's problem. His living. His job. His assignment. That was his distress.

His normal work for Heng was reasonably legal. He worked hard, earned his keep, and supported his two children -- a son and a daughter -- with proud success. His job was relatively simple, he worked with intelligence. He wasn't officially a spy, nor did he just seem to know everything before hand, but when people came asking a question with seemingly no answer, her was their man. His natural curiosity and seeming sixth sense about where to stick his nose and when had earned him a reasonably familiar name among his fellow middle-class tunnel dwellers. As of yet he had no competition, so business was good.

He was only fifty two years old, still a near whelp when it came down to it. He still had the sprite and ambition to get the job done, but that very enthusiasm which earned him his name as one of the fastest in his business also seemed to make the older, more esteemed members of society hesitate to enlist his talents.

Either way, he made due with a nice dwelling, good education for his children and always repaid debts within a month.

And yet now it seemed he was in trouble with the law. Fifty two minutes earlier, Sunow had received a summoning from Backlash, the planet's secret police. One of the more extreme military and political parties. In Sunow's line of work -- which occasionally infringed on Backlash's secrets-- it was a prudent business move to avoid direct contact with them whatsoever.

Turning down a summoning, however, would be even less prudent. And Sunow, having been late getting home to receive his invitation, was late. He hated being late.

Panting, he finally reached the sliding metal door that would lead to his doom if he didn't play his cards right. Leaning over with his hands resting on his knees, his tail dropping to the ground with a plunk, he caught his breath before hitting the 'requested entry' button.

"Sunow," he said into the intercom and a moment later the door opened to admit him.

* * *

"So we just hang around and wait?" Bojack asked, brow creased with frowns that irritated the jagged scar running over his face.

"If you want to do the smart thing, yes," Freeza said, crossing his arms to dare anyone to question his superior knowledge of the planet. No one did, "This planet only works for its citizens who have identification. And since I won't be born for another hundred years I don't have one."

"So what's to wait for?" Garlic asked, "Why not go off, find the guy whose targeting this worthless lump of dirt, and kill him?"

"Because, idiot, we don't _know_ whose going to do it," Freeza said in a condescending voice, as though he were explaining an addition problem to a child.

"So we just wait to get blown up with everyone else? We could at least get off planet," the Bojack said thoughtfully.

Gohan quietly sat on the ground, legs crossed, and watched them argue. His tail lay relaxed behind him, limp except for the very end which tapped absentmindedly at the ground. His stomach was almost empty, and he wondered if there was any edible wildlife around here.

"We can't even get a ship _without identification_!" Freeza's exclamation brought Gohan's thoughts away from his growling abdomen, which he hoped no one could hear.

He finally spoke, "So are we going to get identification or just complain about what we can't do without one?"

Freeza's face shifted from white, to red then back to white as he took a deep breath before speaking again, "That's why I said we should wait. We can't _get_ identification this late in the day. We have to wait till tomorrow. Once we get one, we can have access to all the information we need." He then mentally added, _I hope_...

"Oh," Bojack said.

"Oh," Garlic said.

_Rrrgle_, the noise came from Gohan's stomach. He put his hand over it as his face flushed. At everyone's glance he said, "Um... is there anything to eat around here?"

Freeza chuckled, "I forgot about you Saiya-jins and your appetites. This planet had little in the way of food --Aeesu-jin don't eat solids-- but I'm sure we can find something at a feed store."

"Feed store?" the boy raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, though Aeesu-jin don't eat most of their slaves do. So there are some locations that market sustenance, but," Freeza grinned, "I should warn you in advance. This is slave food."

"What do you feed your slaves?" Bojack asked, leaning forward. His malicious grin eager for gory details.

"Well, lets just say someone whose not starving probably won't eat it," Freeza's gleaming ruby eyes looked right into Gohan's ebony ones, "So what's it gonna be, boy? Starving?"

_Errrg_,Gohan's stomach stated. The boy glared down at his lower half as though he had been betrayed.

"Let me see if I can find an alternative first," he said, digging into his pockets then down the front of his gi in search of something.

"What are you looking for?" Garlic asked, slightly amused as the boy stood up to get better access to the pockets at his hips, standing on one foot while balancing out with his tail.

The boy's face brightened as he withdrew something from the front of his gi, "This!"

To Freeza and Bojack, it looked suspiciously like a compact.

"Capsules?" Garlic asked.

The boy nodded, "Can't hurt to see if my Capsule house has any food left in its refrigerator."

He popped open the little container and carefully selected one of the larger cylindrical objects within. Holding it in a fist, he clicked the button with his thumb and tossed it to the ground.

"Better stand back," he advised Freeza and Bojack even as he made room for the emerging house. A boom and a cloud of colorful dust erupted, compromising everyone's sight for a moment.

"What the-" Freeza's startled voice could be heard through the smog.

"Is this some sort of magic?" Bojack's voice joined Freeza's.

The dust settled, revealing a two story dome shaped house with the number '51' printed boldly on the side in block letters with the slightly smaller words 'Capsule Corps' written below them.

"Home away from home," Gohan recited the Capsule Corps slogan, walking to the door, opened it with the push of a button, and entered. The door closed behind him with a quiet swish as the last tip of his tail vanished inside.

Freeza and Bojack exchanged surprised glances while Garlic stared at the house with mild bemusement, "Hm, nice place. Two story, probably eight roomer. Bet it's all decked out with any of the gadgets the kid could want from that woman with Capsule Corporations."

The other two didn't say anything. They stood in silence waiting for about ten minutes, catching occasional glimpses of Gohan as he dashed about inside through the windows. He emerged a while later with his arms loaded with things to eat. Bowls of rice, fried fish, jugs of water, loaves of bread, and a bowl of steaming soup balanced precariously on top of his head. His face had smattering of food still on it, proof that he had snacked before emerging.

"Okay, so Aeesu-jin don't eat," he said, "But who here does?"

"I don't eat," Garlic said.

Bojack eyed the food. His kind certainly _did_ eat. And even as he thought about it, he realized that he hadn't eaten in a long, long time. He hadn't had a bite in Hell, nor had he time to eat while on Earth. He couldn't exactly eat when he was sealed away in a star all those thousands of years either.

"I _definitely_ eat," he said. Funny, he hadn't realized he was hungry until he _saw _the food. But now, he needed it desperately.

Gohan dumping the food in his arms to the ground before carefully lifting the bowl of soup off his head, "You're eating out here. I'm going inside for the night, now. Knock in the morning when you guys plan to get the identification. Night."

With that, he vanished back into the house. Bojack settled into eating while Garlic and Freeza sank into their own thoughts.

**To be continued.....**

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	4. CM04

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 4**

The room was refreshingly cold to Sunow's skin. He had worked up a sweat running, and the frigid temperature that would cause any warm blooded creature to freeze within an hour was just the kind of high powered air conditioning that he needed. He hadn't checked the time since he left his home, and didn't know exactly how late he was, so he continued to sweat as he walked deeper into the ill light room, his tail a softened 'S' behind him.

"You're late," a quiet voice said.

Through the darkness, the Aeesu-jin could make out elusive shapes in the center of the room, all seated around a rectangular table. A glinting horn, a tapping tail, a reflection of light on an eye as it blinked. There were at least six people in the room beside Sunow -- six against one. That was a major concern, things even worse due to the fact that Sunow was ill-trained in combat, where as all Backlash representatives were required to have thirty years of solid training under their belt. Sunow had never been of the planet before, he had never tried out his inherited transformations to attain his ultimate power. At his age, however, he knew that even his ultimate would not save him if things turned ugly in his present situation.

"I'm sorry, I was late in receiving my summoning," he said and took his seat at one end of the table where he was in view of everyone, and sat next to no one. In the center of the table sat a small hovering orb which expelled a soft blue light most agreeable to Aeesu-jin eyes. 

"That's...... understandable," the head of the table stated. Now that he could see with the helpful blue light, Sunow saw that he was in deeper trouble than he had worried earlier. What he was dealing with was not simply the riffraff of Backlash, just a bunch of rookie trainees out looking for trouble. Sunow now wished it were. Senior Advisor Kaldu -- Duke Furaz's right hand man -- was a sly, malicious, highly intelligent Aeesu-jin with the whopping age of seven hundred twenty-three to back him up. He was said to have discovered two transformations on his own when in his prime, though it was a common joke flitting from the underbellies to the upper-class warlords that he was hitting a mid-life crisis.

As the years went by, Kaldu had become paranoid; always looking over his shoulder when he was alone, constantly fearing an uprising from the lower-class citizens when the thought had never occurred to them. He accused hundreds of innocent Aeesu-jin, children included, of horrible crimes against the Duke and punished them with death or banishment or other punishments for serious offenders. This worried Sunow, as his job certainly did compromise Backlash's conspiracies, and he could be found guilty for something that he indeed did do.

Sunow trembled.

"I have no time to waste with talk, detective," Kaldu said, tapping at the table with a pale finger while Sunow could barely make out a swishing tail behind him, swinging back and forth like a pendulum. Sunow was mildly put off about being called 'detective.' It made him feel sneaky, and though sneakiness was part of his trade, he didn't have to like it.

"I understand, sir, please continue," Sunow found his lips saying, though deep down he wanted to stall to keep alive for just a few more precious moments before they announced his death sentence.

"We've been watching you for a long time now, and we have analyze your skills."

_Oh, kami, I'm going to die!_ Sunow gripped the arms of his chair while he fought the urge to jump up and run with every mite of power he had.

"We think the Duke in in danger."

* * *

Son Gohan sat quietly on the cushy easy chair in his capsule house's living room. Across his lap lay a nice think novel, open temptingly to an unread chapter, but reading was the farthest thing in his mind at the moment. Everything was blissfully quiet, the only sound was the muffled thump his tail made against the chair cushion as it swayed idly back and forth.

The boy closed his eyes and slid down in his chair a few inches and put his feet up on the foot rest, kicking off his boots while he was at it and lacing his hands behind his head. The movement caused his book to slowly slide off his lap and _thunk_ to the ground. He didn't bother sitting up to retrieve it. He was so comfortable and at ease. It felt like he was in his little house, relaxing on Earth in a little vacation from his mother and from his life.

Just him, his book, and his chair.

_Thump thump thump._

And his tail.

He tilted his head to the side and looked out the window at the foreign landscape, rocky soil, tufts of green and purple grass sprinkled across the ground, an inky purple atmosphere and uncountable stars. Off in the distance he could see mountains that were dotted with lights. Perhaps they were buildings.

And Aeesu-sei.

Suddenly things didn't quite feel as comfortable. His position was awkward on his back. He was sitting on his tail. His hands were falling asleep behind his head. His feet were cold without his boots on. With a grumbled sigh Gohan got up, picked up his book from the ground and set it on his chair, clicked off the living room lights and made his way through the house, clicking off other lights as he went. The house was dark when he reached the bedroom, and here he turned the light on.

It wasn't much, the bedroom. Just the simple basics -- a bed, night stand, miniature bathroom, and a wardrobe. He didn't even bother taking his clothes off as he sighed again and pulled back the blankets on the bed, hitting the light switch on his night stand to cast the room into darkness. Tugging the sheets up to his chin, he stared up at the ceiling. His tail twitched, hampered under the blankets.

He closed his eyes.

* * *

"Oh, please have mercy! You have no proof! Think of my children!" Sunow desperately pleaded. He would have run, but his legs were impossible to move as somewhere in-between his words his thick tail had coiled itself around his ankles, and try as he might he couldn't find the mental will power to unwind it.

"Good god, man. What are you talking about?" One of the other Aeesu-jin -- his name hadn't been mentioned -- asked.

"I-eh?" Sunow tongue came crashing to a stop before he could say anything else, "You mean you're not going to execute me?"

"No, good grief," Kaldu grumbled, "We want to hire your services to keep track of the information train and do all it takes to root up any who might want to endanger out beloved Duke Furaz."

"You're offering me a job?" Sunow's entire concept of reality suddenly teetered as his whole situation turned upside-down.... in his favor.

"Yes, now you have your assignment! You'll be paid when you find our perpetrator," Kaldu seemed miffed, "Now get out, infant!"

"Yessir, yessir!" Sunow scurried out the door, tail held high like a child, smiling gleefully that not only was he getting out with his life, but he had a new assignment! Being paid always had been a good thing.........

* * *

It couldn't have been more than two hours of blissful sleep before Gohan heard a raucous thumping on his capsule house door.

_Wham. Wham. Wham._

He scrunched his eyes and rolled over under his warm covers. A quick glance at the clock on his night stand reminded him he hadn't checked the time when he went to sleep, so he didn't know long he had been out. Then again, how was time kept on planet Aeesu-sei? The boy groaned that he had already reminded himself he wasn't home anymore. It was getting depressing, and he was embarrassed to admit even to himself that he was already homesick.

_Wham. Wham. Wham._

Who would be knocking at this ungodly hour? He chuckled to himself to realize that he was naturally assuming the whole planet would find the early just because he was still tired. He buried his face in the soft pillow and gave a muffled groan.

_Wham. Crack! Screeeeeee...... WHAM!_

With a sleep-slurred 'what the?!' Gohan suddenly found himself out of his bed, his covers soaring through the air where he had tossed them. Glancing around the room in a sudden search for something amiss, he remembered the sound had come from the front door. Dashing out of his bedroom, down the hall, through the living room, and grabbed the wall to make a sharp to face the front door.

It was pretty much what he expected to see, though he still wasn't happy about it.

Filling his doorway was the immense shape of Bojack. The door itself was no longer safely hung on it's hinges; it was laying across the threshold, split down the middle with a wide crack. The blue giant, for his part, was staring down at the door, looking surprised that it was so fragile. He looked up to see Gohan staring down at his broken door, looking mildly upset.

"We're leaving," was all Bojack bothered to say as he vanished from the doorway. Gohan almost followed him out, not wanting to get left behind on this kami forsaken planet, but went back into the house to get his boots before departure. It took him a while of searching the kitchen and his bedroom to remember he had left them in the living room before he had gone to bed. He didn't bother to take the time to put them on, he just grabbed them and ran out the door.

Outside, the other three members of the unlikely band Gohan had been paired up with looked ready and rearing to go, giving him an annoyed 'we're waiting on you' look as he hopped on one foot to get one of his boots on. He sat down on the ground to get the other on, tying it hastily. He was back on his feet in a flash and jogged back to his capsule house.

"You're going back in?" Garlic asked, obviously annoyed at waiting for him, "What else do you need?!"

"Nothing," the boy said, stopping at the door. He didn't bother to say more as he picked up his front door and set it as carefully as he could back on its hinges, a look of disgust that it had been broken in the first place ran over his features. He found the small button on the side of the house and pushed it. In a far less impressive way than it had emerged, the two story house shrunk back into a capsule and fell to the dirt with a quiet click, the boy picked it up and tucked it carefully in its case.

Turning back around he said, "All right, let's go."

And found that he was talking to no one. They had already left without him. With a muttered curse he tracked down their three distinctible chi's and jetted off after them, a white vapor trail following in his wake.

****

Garlic looked behind him as he flew when he felt the kid start to follow them. The hadn't gotten much of a head start, so it was only seconds before the demon could make out the shape of the boy, and less than a second after visual contact that the boy was flying side by side with them.

"Thought you weren't coming," Bojack chuckled, none of the charisma in his voice watered down in the intense wind inspired by his speed.

The kid said nothing, though the look on his face was underlined with hostility; he didn't like being left behind. Garlic chuckled to himself, but the sound was choked to death the instant Gohan's ink black eyes landed squarely on him.

"Can't you go any faster?" the boy asked with annoyance, his eyes challenging. The other two looked back to hear his answer, and Garlic realized that they were having to go slowly for him to keep up. He swore viciously but didn't say anything as he averted his eyes to look at the ground, trying to ignore the looks of chagrin everyone else was giving him. Garlic could swear he heard Gohan chuckle quietly to himself, but it could have just been the wind.

**To be continued.....**

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	5. CM05

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 5**

Freeza said the city's name was irrevolent. In all truth, Son Gohan didn't know why he had asked about a name in the first place. But for some reason, it mattered a lot to him. The planet that he was flying over was the planet he was supposed to save, just as he had saved Earth, _his_ beloved planet, so many times before. He loved Earth, loved how it smelled, looked, felt, sounded and even tasted with enough power that he was willing to risk his life for it.

The only thing he knew about planet Aeesu was that it had a purple sky and that tyrannical, planet crushing, cold hearted, killing machines were born and raised here. He wondered if he actually would risk his life to save this planet. Earth, despite the harsh, painful memories that had spored there, had raised him gently, encouraged high morals and a sense of fighter's pacifism, transforming him into the living contradiction he was today.

He wanted to know more about Aeesu-sei. Though he knew he would never know it as intimately as he had known Earth, he wanted some proof that he was saving a planet worth saving. He wanted to know he was helping a race that loved life and all its aspects just as much as he did. He wanted to look past the fear and helplessness he had felt at the hands of the Aeesu-jin to see that they had more than hearts of stone.

The Saiya-jin had seemed evil at first didn't they? Wasn't Vegita once what Gohan would have considered a heartless bastard, only out to kill and hurt and torment, sowing pain and death in his wake? But now that he knew him, the boy saw the Vegita deep down wasn't like that. Was it the same with Freeza? For some reason, Gohan didn't want to think so. He wanted Freeza to have a heart as black as the memories that went with him. Gohan didn't want any other feelings other than hatred toward Freeza. He didn't want to change his mind again.

In his present position in life -- save the recent relocation to this new planet -- Gohan had just started to get the pieces of his life back together again. He was finally able to think of his father with only a feeling of nostalgia, regret only a shadow where it had once been an unbearable weight. He was starting to make his own personality, going with what he wanted, not only trying to please those he adored. And though he still greatly loved and respected Piccolo and his father and his mother and everyone else, he was starting to mold himself into his own image, coming up with his own values, beliefs, preferences and annoyances.

And then he had to go and get cast into this situation where he had to even doubt his hatred of Freeza.

Where would that leave him? Would he start to suddenly hand out forgiveness to all his enemies?

_You're great Nappa._

_I love you Garlic._

_You're a great guy Bojack._

_I forgive you Cell..._

Gohan shuddered and hoped it would never come to that.

There was no visible city to be seen as Freeza said, "We're here."

The other three of them looked around curiously to see what he was talking about. They were hovering above a wide mountain range, the rugged stripe of drastically uneven elevation running as far as the eye could see to the north and south, surrounded on the east and west side by the sparsely grassed plains in which the four had spent the previous night.

"What are you talking about?" Bojack demanded, "I see no civilization."

"Idiot," Freeza returned, "You don't even know what to look for -- look there."

Bojack, Gohan and Garlic all followed the direction in which Freeza's long white fingers were pointing, and at first saw nothing. The massive, rocky exterior of the mountains was mottled with caves and cervices, some looking like they might reach all the way to the planet's core, but none looking like the entrance to a civilized dwelling of a sentient species like the Aeesu-jin.

Gohan saw it first. He leaned forward and squinted his eyes to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

"I think I see it," he said, "Under that big crevice? That strange light......"

The others quickly saw it as well.

"What is it?" Bojack asked.

"The entrance," Freeza said and flew down toward it, "Aeesu-jin live under ground. Come on, then, we don't have all day."

The others followed him with slight apprehension. When they were eye level, they could see that it wasn't just a light, but a door framed with fine, florescent hair like particles. The looked like glowing strands of seaweed and with each breeze they swayed, shifted, danced as though gravity itself didn't dare touch them. They looked beautiful, though Gohan wondered if he was the only one who saw it that way.

"Their opposite of photosynthetic," Freeza explained the plants, "They absorb oxygen and water and transform it into carbon dioxide, sugar and light. Aeesu-jin scientists invented them to grow around the entrances to our underground dwellings to make them easier to locate."

He slid a pale hand around the door frame until he located a slide away panel; hitting the release device, it slid away to reveal a small collection of buttons lined in a neat row beneath a miniature monitor screen. Freeza carefully typed a simple code into the buttons and the monitor sprung to life, showing the face of an Aeesu-jin Gohan had never seen before.

The boy was mildly surprised, for though the other Aeesu-jin indeed had many features that corresponded with Freeza's, there were also many that did not. Where Freeza had purple metallic accents, this Aeesu-jin had green. It was an emerald green and for some reason the color reminded Gohan of fresh green grass, the vibrant color Earth foliage took on when it had just budded and wanted to show off it's beauty and splendor at just existing. The Aeesu-jin's eyes were a deep, maroon color as compared to Freeza and his family's flaming red. His skin was a soft blue that faded to crisp white in the center of his face.

"State name and intention," the Aeesu-jin said mundanely, it was obvious that he had been answering calls like this for quite a time now.

"Freeza, off-planet Aeesu-jin requesting entrance of self and three servants to get temporary on-planet identification."

Gohan, Bojack and Garlic all scowled deeply at being referred to as 'servants.' The Aeesu-jin on the monitor tick-typed on a keyboard below their point of view and read something for a minute. They waited, and soon he returned his attention to them, stating in the same monotone he used earlier.

"Confirmed, proceed immediately to identification booth 31-K, they will be expecting you within twenty minutes."

"Understood," Freeza said, and the monitor went dead.

"He certainly seemed enthused," Bojack said quietly.

"He must love his work," Garlic agreed.

Gohan didn't bother commenting as he leaned forward to closer inspect the stringy, glowing plants that framed the door. Quite suddenly, the door slid open with a quiet hiss. A gust of freezing air spumed out from within, momentarily fluttering the boy's hair wildly around his face, so cold it stung Gohan's nose so sharply it made his eyes water and his flesh broke out in goose bumps. He wrapped his arms around themselves.

"Why is it so blasted cold in there?" Bojack asked moodily, as his lava colored hair leapt in the sudden icy blast that enveloped them all.

"Aeesu-jin are cold blooded," Freeza said, mildly annoyed at constantly being asked questions, "We like it at this temperature."

"But don't cold blooded creatures need lots of warmth to keep themselves active?" Gohan asked before he realized his lips were moving. That damn curious scientist that shared Gohan's body just couldn't seem to stop asking questions, despite his attempts to stifle them.

"We don't need _warmth_," Freeza hissed as he started to enter the now open door way, "We only need light. Our scientists have found that photo-energy can just as easily be produced in a laboratory than by the sun, now would you all just stop asking stupid questions and get the hell in already?"

The followed him in without further questioning, though Gohan paused to pluck a few phosphorescent plants from the glowing door way in case he got the chance to study them later. No one noticed or cared as he tucked the still glowing plant life into the front of his gi and flew a bit faster to catch up.

* * *

As he exited down the hall way at a far slower pace then he had entered, Sunow ran over all the facts he had gained during his meeting with Backlash.

There had been a series of murders recently, targeted mainly at high standing Government officials -- dukes, kings, emperors -- each were linked to some elusive killer, presumed assassin, who vanished like a puff of smoke every time authorities reached the crime scene. Higherarchy were in fear, authorities were in frustration and every civilian from the age of one and up was in suspect.

And Sunow was charged with the laborious task of finding the killer or killers responsible, apprehending them, turning them over to Backlash and erasing all parts he played in the situation so Backlash may partake of the credit. His reward: he entered Backlash headquarters with many known, prosecutable charges hanging over his head like a deranged mental Chinese water torture and was still able to walk out alive. And he had the promise that if he was ever apprehended himself, Backlash would do what they could to bail him out. For the rest of his life.

And Backlash held considerable sway when it came to capital punishment.

So far, all he could do was keep a constant vigil over anyone that might be trying to get a new set of identification. These were the kind of people that were trying to escape from the law, lose their old name and the past that lived with it, and go on free as a bird until they committed another crime and had to change it again. The average criminal Aeesu-jin tended to be a repeated offender of a certain crime, usually violence.

The weight on his shoulders immense, the mentally and physically weary young Aeesu-jin made his way through winding halls and corridors to his own little sanctuary, generally known as 'home.'

_How, oh, how am I going to pull this off?_

He placed his pale hand against the door-open button outside of his comfortable, family sized quarters and sighed once more in contempt at his eventful, but anxious life. His need to feel sorry for himself was forcefully shoved out of the picture when the instant the door slid open; two miniature, hyperactive Aeesu-jin children came scampering, skittering, tripping, crawling, tearing and racing to the door to greet him, bouncing with childlike excitement and jabbering the way only the young can. With all the commotion and motion, it could be easy to mistake the two children out to greet him to be ten, if not twenty, in number.

"Didja' bring me anything, Papa? Huh huh huh?!" The eldest of the two, Forester, nearing fifteen years, was already pursuing materialism.

"Papa! Papa home, yay! Papa!" The youngest, Eesei, hardly two years old, was still trying to master the language before being able to demand gifts. Surprisingly, this one was taking on more feminine qualities and was more often referred to as a 'she' than a 'he' though there was scientifically no difference in genders.

Sunow laughed. It was good to have family. Once the two had settled down -- the youngest finally tired of giving rib cracking hugs and the eldest weary of tugging at his arm -- Sunow bothered speaking. Anytime sooner and the words would be lost in the commotion.

"Ah, my children!" He addressed them, they smiled, "How was your education today? Did you learn anything good?"

"We started learning to control our power! Teacher says I'm one of the best... though I think he says that to everyone."

"Wonderful, wonderful, good to hear, my boy. And how about you, little Eesei, what did you do today?"

"Paint," the child said enthusiastically as she withdrew a drippy sheet of paper from behind her back. On the paper was a swirling mass of painty colors mashed together so thoroughly that in the center it had been reduced to a mucky brown surrounded by irrational twirls of deluded purple, thick yellow and lots of orange. It was hideous.

"It's beautiful," Sunow said, and to him, it really was.

"It's you!" she cheered and scurried off to her room to hang her 'master piece' on the wall with all her others, the still drying paint leaving a drippy, colorful trail in her wake, her stubby tail arched in pride behind her. Sunow sighed gratefully.

"We have two messages," Forester said with teen-like indifference as h meandered back to his quarters.

Sunow slowly walked to the computer console that stood next to the door. He deeply hoped he hadn't gotten another summoning , as had happened earlier that day, for he was known for his promptness and had already been late once. He did _not_ want to be considered late again.

He gave a relieved sigh when he saw that neither were summoning, or jobs. He opened the first one and read with great distaste that it was nothing more than a bill. He hated bills, even though he easily had the money to pay them. It was just the principal of the thing. Quickly as he could he signed off a good sum of money and a copy of his stamped identification to the Head Bureau of Finances and Tax Collection, and have it over and done with.

The second was worse. He _wished_ it were a bill. It was quite possibly one of the most bothersome, terrible annoyances he could ever become involved with, especially now that he had a new case in which he would have to devote his time.

Quite a few years ago, Sunow had met a most interesting off-planet Aeesu-jin. Though his name was beyond the point, this particular Aeesu-jin had so affected the young Sunow's mind that he hence forth believed that all off-planet Aeesu-jin were the most spectacular, fascinating, amusing and intelligent living creatures in the universe that the instant he could he went out and signed him and his household up to the disposal of any off-planet Aeesu-jin that happened to need a temporary place to stay.

Through the years, he had learned just how big of a mistake it had been as he quickly began to realize that most off-planets were just as annoying, egotistical, bothersome, haughty, boastful sacks of hot air as any on-planet character. He even grew to dread the next letter saying that his house had come around for use again.

And that was exactly what this message was. His name was up again, and the next off-planet to register for temporary residency and identification would be offered his home at their disposal.

Sunow moaned to himself, sent a message of comprehension as a reply, and went to check on his kids.

* * *

The entrance to the underground city had limited visual, as for the past fifteen minutes they had been traveling through hallway segments. There was hardly more than twenty feet of hall before it was cut off by a large, heavy metal door that swung open as they approached it.

After passing sixteen doors, Gohan counted, they approached a bigger, heavier, thicker door that one could just_ tell_ was the last one.

"Any thing you want to warn us about before we enter?" Garlic asked as he looked back down the hall they had enter through. He couldn't see very far, as the doors had closed behind them.

Freeza just grinned and palmed the door open.

Gohan didn't know what to expect as the door swished open. Still, despite his attempts to prepare himself for unexpected he was still surprised. He thought that perhaps it would look like a normal city with a dome over it to protect it from the tons of dirt pressing down on it from above, street lights, maybe even something like cars.

Oh, how far from actuality he was. For at first glance, it looked quite primitive. It was like a huge underground cavern with halogen lights above it. And it was indeed _huge_. The roof of the cavern was, without over exaggeration, nearly ten miles above their heads. The mountain had looked huge from the outside, but, though this gargantuan cave wasn't _nearly_ as large as the whole mountain, it certainly made it look a lot bigger. The rocky surfaces were still exposed, not covered with any sort of high tech metal. There was no dome, and Gohan got the impression that the ground high above them would surely cave in upon them any second. And every surface was pocked with other holes and caves, leading deeper into the city, looking even from the outside like an unnavigatable maze.

But it was neither the size, nor the instability, nor the hundreds of caves that had surprised the young half Saiya-jin.

It was the fact that the entire place, from one point of view to the other, was teeming, _swarming_ with Aeesu-jin of all shapes, sizes and colors. They were climbing along the walls with hands and feet, their long tails swishing behind them, they climbed upside down, left, right, always with their head close to the rocks beneath them first and their tails behind them, giving Gohan the impression he had just stumbled into a giant lizard nest.

And it was absolutely silent. The Aeesu-jin made no sound as they traveled along their own, laborious path. Not a word was uttered between them, not a rock was knocked out of place despite the constant movement.

Perhaps more of a spider's nest than a lizard nest....... Gohan thought. The whole place gave him the creeps.

Freeza moved silently to one of the walls and placed one white hand against the well worn surface. He looked back at the three of them to see that they hadn't moved to follow him -- they were still staring at the walls above them. Freeza cleared his throat and the all looked back at him. He jerked his head in a 'this way' motion and started climbing the walls.

The three of them still on the ground wanted to ask questions. They wanted to make _some_ sound. It was un-nervingly silent for a place so full of people. But they only shrugged to each other. Garlic started to levitate up after Freeza, who was carefully picking his way up the steep wall.

Various Aeesu-jin eyes darted his way, each burning with disapproval. Garlic didn't have time to react as Freeza's tail suddenly whipped out and swatted him back to the ground. The other Aeesu-jin turned back to their own tasks. Garlic glared death at Freeza, but the Aeesu-jin only gestured to the walls.

The message was clear. Flying was prohibited in this area. They would have to climb.

At first, they didn't move. They only stared up the wall at Freeza, who was glaring back at them. They exchanged glances. They stared back at the wall.

Finally, with an exasperated sigh, Gohan approached the wall. He looked up at it for a moment, back at Bojack and Garlic, then he placed one hand to the wall. He found a hand hold and hoisted himself up. It felt strange, scurrying up the wall -- following Freeza no less -- like one of the other lizard like people. His tail arched in the air behind him, giving him extra balance as he quickened his pace.

Bojack and Garlic soon followed.

They soon had entered a heavily trafficked area, being forced to dart around other fast moving Aeesu-jin who had the added advantage of fingered feet to help them move along the rocks, while Gohan, Garlic and Bojack had to scramble at the nearly worn smooth rocks with the tips of their toes in an attempt to find foot holds. The tedious work got worse as the rise they were climbing got steeper and steeper, soon rising up to a 90 degree angle. They dug their fingers into the rock, kicked at worthless toe holds, and gritted their teeth as the thought more and more how great it would be to be able to _fly_.

But somehow, they managed to follow Freeza, who was forced to constantly stop his speedy incline to impatiently wait for them.

Finally, Freeza took a sharp turn and darted into one of the caves, the purple tip of his tail vanishing out of the other's view. After three or four minutes, Gohan reached the branch behind him. Grabbing hold of the lip of the off-branching tunnel, he swung one of his legs over the edge and soon had hoisted the rest of him up after it.

He stood at the mouth, one hand on the wall supporting himself, and looked back down at the slope he had just climbed. He hadn't been keeping track of the amount of distance he was covering as he climbed, but as he looked down now, he saw that it had at least been two miles. He sighed, glad the climbing trek was over.

He looked over the Aeesu-jin that crawled vertically below him, watching as they moved with blatant disregard for gravity, and looked for Bojack and Garlic through the masses. Bojack's huge form and noticeable hair wasn't too difficult to spot. He was almost to the cave himself, perhaps fifty feet away. Garlic was no where to be seen. It wasn't surprising. His miniature form had probably vanished from view the instant he entered the moving, swirling climbing throng.

Gohan didn't worry too much about it as he leaned against the wall to wait.

Soon, a large blue hand had wrapped around the lip of the cave entrance. The hand was soon followed by Bojack. The cave was the perfect size for people of smaller stature like Freeza or Gohan, but Bojack's massive shoulders and intimidatingly large form forced him to hunch over to avoid bumping his head on the cave ceiling. His deep voice rumbled with annoyance, but the silence of his surroundings kept him from voicing his annoyances further.

Garlic emerged from the hoard of moving bodies and tails, his tiny blue hands scouring the rocks for good hand holds. He pulled himself into the cave and took a moment to catch his breath before looked up to the other three that were waiting for him.

Freeza didn't bother saying anything else as he turned and started down the hall. The other three didn't bother pausing thing time before they plunged in right behind him.

The hall way was dark, almost too dark to see through, and Gohan pulled the phosphorescent plants he had picked earlier to help them keep track of where Freeza was going. The plants offered pitiful little light, but what they did offer seemed to go straight to Freeza's pale body, causing it to glow as though it were in black light.

The Aeesu-jin turned left. Then right. Then right again. Then he jumped up into a cave that went vertically for a few feet before turning sharply horizontal again. Then right again. Then left. They walked past hundreds of other caves and other turn offs, and Gohan wondered if he would ever be able to find his way back out of here again with anything short of blasting a himself a hole to the surface.

Finally, after Gohan began to think he would soon start suffering from vertigo, Freeza turned down one more caved off hall way that came to an abrupt stop at a door. The door had the red, florescent glowing words 'Identification Booth 31-K' glowing like a beacon above it.

"We're here," Freeza stated.

**To be continued.................**

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	6. CM06

I mention in this part a species called the _Tsufuru-jin._ It doesn't really have much to do with the series I'm writing, but I think I should explain what they are so you guys aren't confused. The _Tsufuru-jin_ were only mentioned a couple of times in the DBZ series (Kaio-sama called them the 'Tuffles' in the American version.) They were a highly intelligent species that shared the planet with the Saiya-jin, and, for the most part, lived in peace. Of coarse it never stayed peaceful when Saiya-jin are involved, so a war broke out -- Saiya-jin chi versus _Tsufuru-jin _technology. The Saiya-jin won, killed off the _Tsufuru-jin_ and named the planet Vegita. 

The situation between the _Tsufuru-jin _and the Saiya-jin must have been tense even before the war broke out, as the Playdia OVA shows. In one of the scenes, Vegita, Goku, Gohan, Trunks and Piccolo are talking to Dr. Raichi, the last remaining_Tsufuru-jin_ (who, through the movie, is the antagonist, out to exterminate all the Saiya-jin in the universe) and the doctor says something like 'I will never forgive you Saiya-jin for what you did to my people.' (I'm not sure exactly, since the subs were worthless and I was forced to resort to my limited Japanese. I tell you now I'm none too good at translating.) Vegita seems to get very angry and yelled, 'You _Tsufuru-jin_ treated us Saiya-jin like slaves! It is me who will not be doing the forgiving!'

So, it wasn't just the Saiya-jin to blame. The _Tsufuru-jin_ were asking for it. Like I said, this had nothing to do with my series, but I still think it's interesting. ^_^

* * *

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 6**

The room they entered was even colder than the hall they had been traveling through. When the door swished open, a frigid blast of air welcomed them with sharp teeth, biting at noses, cheeks, eyes, ears, fingers and any other unprotected area of soft flesh. Only Freeza went unaffected. Garlic pulled his cape in tighter around his body, nestling his head lower into his hood, and even then felt chilled. Gohan and Bojack could only wrap their bare arms around themselves in a pitiful gesture to attempt staving off such a harsh temperature

The room was neither small nor large, and sparsely decorated. Four plain white walls, a light pink carpeted floor, a ceiling dotted with excruciatingly bright halogen lights, one wall lined with chairs. In one corner was nestled a small receptionist desk, behind which sat a medium sized Aeesu-jin with mostly sky-blue skin and midnight blue accents whose attention was inclined to whatever he was reading on the computer installed in his desk.

The normality of the room made the rocky, primitive caves they had thus traveled through seem ridiculous. Ludicrous. Gohan glanced back over his shoulder to take one more look at the caverns as the door slid shut behind them with a silent hiss.

"State name and intention," the Aeesu-jin receptionist behind the desk said, speaking in the same, droning monotone as the Aeesu-jin who had greeted them.

Gohan wondered if that was simply how Aeesu-jin greeted one another, with indifference -- if not ignoring eachother completely. That would, after all, explain the absolute silence even in the bustling hubbub they had been forced to navigate through on the way up. The boy had to constantly beat away at his curiosity to avoid spilling out hundreds of questions at rapid-fire intervals, asking questions ranging from Aeesu-jin anatomy to social mores.

"Freeza, off-planet Aeesu-jin requesting temporary on-planet identification. Also, I need a permit to be accompanied by these three servants while I'm here."

"Freeza." The other paused to check in on the computer installed in his desk, "Ah, here you are. You're right on time, that's good. Please, come this way so we can ask you some questions while we examine your three escorts."

"Examine?" Bojack asked, his breath was slightly visible in the cold. The frosted air spumed up over his mane and soon vanished from sight.

"Yes, we have to test and examine each species to make sure that they're not carrying any form of harmful bacteria or disease. We have to look out for the welfare of our people; you never know what one can pick up while out in space."

Gohan hesitated to argue. He, indeed, had no particular desire to be poked and prodded by people who, no doubt, saw him as nothing more than a slave. Still, he could understand, and even respect their precautions. In cases like the Aeesu-jin, where coming and going, on planet, off planet, was as regular as breathing, it would be almost _necessary_ to take such safety steps.

That didn't make the thought any more pleasant. He chewed his lip in indecision.

"Please, walk through these doors to get the process started," the receptionist said, gesturing toward an open door way.

Taking a deep breath, Gohan started forward first. Bojack and Garlic moved to follow, but were stopped.

"One at a time please."

Gohan paused in the door way, forced himself to not look back, took another deep breath, and plunged in.

It was a very sterile and shrilly boring looking room. The walls and floor and ceiling were all white tile, gleaming with cleanliness. The room smelled of disinfectants so strongly that the boy's stomach hurt and his eyes stung. In the center of the room was an examining table. Two of the walls extended into table tops, one of which was covered with various tools -- some recognizable, some guessible, and some Gohan felt he would be better not knowing what they were. The other table had a small sink installed in it, other than that it was bare.

It looked like a doctors office, clear as day.

Gohan slowly walked deeper into the room, his tail hanging straight down behind him except for the tip, which was turned upward. The door swished shut behind him. He glanced back at it for a moment, but his sight soon returned forward. He was too curious about what would happen next to worry about getting back. Besides that, he wasn't exactly _eager_ to go rushing back to Bojack, Garlic and Freeza.

He made his way slowly to the examining table in the center of the room and leaned against it, waiting.

It wasn't too long until a door on the other side of the room whooshed open and an unfamiliar Aeesu-jin entered, looking down at a clip board. Gohan assumed he was the doctor. He was rather large -- a good four heads above Gohan -- and seemed slightly plumper than the other Aeesu-jin the boy had seen. His skin was a soft yellow color, brownish-orange accompaniments and horns that curved forward like a bull. He would have been very intimidating if he were to scowl, but his face was soft and emotionless as he carried the Aeesu-jin indifference Gohan was beginning to get used to.

The man stopped in the middle of the room, his attention wrapped up in whatever he was reading on his clipboard. Gohan shifted his feet and cleared his throat noisily to notify him that he was not alone. The Aeesu-jin glanced up from his work, looked pointedly at Gohan.

"State name and intention," the doctor said, tearing a sheet off of his clipboard to make room for a new one.

"Uh, Son Gohan," the boy said, missing a beat. He had heard Freeza answer that question twice now with out pausing to think. It had come out of him so naturally that until this moment Gohan hadn't thought of what he would say if he were asked, "I'm here to get... examined."

The doctor hardly blinked as he asked, "And are you an off-planet Aeesu-jin's or are you a freshly bought on-planet servant?"

"Neither," the boy said, "I'm _here_ with Freeza, but no one owns me."

The doctor looked at him for a while in tense silence, sizing him up, reading into the sharp point of his chin and the fire of freedom blazing in his eyes.

"Okay, then," he said finally and jotted something down on his clipboard. Gohan sagged in relief that he wasn't going to be challenged. "What species of alien are you?"

"Ah... I'm a human, Saiya-jin hybrid," Gohan said. Saying it sounded funny, he just thought of himself as a person; the term 'hybrid' just didn't feel like it fit him.

The doctor smiled for a moment and said -- momentarily dropping his professional finesse--, "Hybrids have always fascinated me. Saiya-jin you say? How's that civil war of theirs going?"

Gohan blinked, mildly surprised by the sudden change in the doctor's mannerism, "Civil war?"

"Yes, I hear that there's some major dispute going on between the Saiya-jin and some other people about the control of the planet. We don't know much about the other guys other than that they aren't too strong; they fight their side with highly developed weaponry. Very interesting stuff from what we hear from the Saiya-jin."

_He must be talking about the war with the Tsufuru-jin_, Gohan thought, "So you Aeesu-jin are in contact with the Saiya-jins?"

"Yes, indeed," the doctor said, his ochre eyes shining, "In fact, Saiya-jin slaves are growing more and more in demand as time goes by for hard labor and planet clearance. They can clear a planet faster than any species we've come across yet. They are very interesting, but few allow themselves to be subject to study. They're kind of secretive in a way. Very interesting people, indeed."

Gohan studied the tiles beneath his feet as he thought about what had been said. This was the birth of the Saiya-jin's temporary chance to own their own planet and rule it as they wished. How many years until their planet blew up? Quite a few, Gohan was sure. Over a thousand. Still, it wasn't pleasant to know there was a planet floating in space out there with an uncontrollable fate to be destroyed at a predestined time. The hair on his neck and tail stood on end for more reasons than the cold. His scalp tingled as a shiver ran up his body.

The doctor's voice broke through his thoughts.

"Back to the task at hand, I need a few samples from you for analysis. Blood, hair, skin, that sort of stuff."

He moved to the table full of medical instruments; Gohan noticed he waddled slightly as he walked, his huge, heavyset body swaying back and forth as his swollen tail seemed hardly able to do more than jut out of his back and gradually slope to the ground. He almost laughed when he realized the doctor waddled like a turkey. This was certainly not the time for humor! He clamped his teeth down on his tongue to keep a smile from creeping across his face. It was good to know that Aeesu-jin got fat, too.

"We'll start with the blood sample," the doctor muttered to himself as he picked a syringe off the table top, "It seems to be the most unpleasant, so we might as well get it done with first."

The Aeesu-jin neared Gohan, paused. He looked perplexed.

"Is something wrong?" The boy asked.

The doctor took a deep breath, let it out and said, "Could you please show me a good vein to get the blood out of? I know nothing about Saiya-jin anatomy, and have never heard of a human."

Gohan nodded and slipped off one of his weighted arm bands. He searched over his now bare wrist until he found his pulse.

"Right here," he said, tapping the spot for the doctor to see.

"Ah, thank you," the doctor said, and took the boy's wrist in his hand, his other hand holding the syringe, "This will sting for a moment, but please hold still."

Gohan didn't have to be told. He certainly didn't want a single drop of his precious blood falling into the Aeesu-jin's hands, but he wasn't afraid of it. A tiny sting? Compared to the pain and agony he had experienced in his short life, he had a feeling he wouldn't have to worry. Despite that, he closed his eyes. He didn't want to see that needle vanish under his skin.

There was a sharp prick in his wrist, but as the doctor said, it only hurt for a second. A few square inched of his arm felt warm for a moment, but that, too, subsided. Gohan waited, eyes still closed.

"All done," the doctor's voice said. The boy opened his eyes and looked at his wrist. He hadn't even felt the needle leave his skin, but it was true. The deed was done. Gohan slipped his armband back on his wrist and slid his weight up onto the examining table. His legs dangled over the edge on one side, on the other side his tail dangled, swaying back and forth like pendulum in a clock.

The doctor moved across the room, carefully holding the specimen of blood, back to the table. He opened a cabinet under the table and pulled out a larger device. It was about as big and round as a five gallon bucket, but one side jutted out slightly and was dotted with knobs and buttons. The top of the device opened when the doctor hit a code into it, revealing a carefully contained interior. At a glance, Gohan saw that the lid, when closed, was held shut by a high powered magnet lined with rubber.

Nothing, not air, water, or even germs could find a way out of it. Gohan was impressed.

The doctor carefully emptied the gleaming red half-pint of Gohan's blood into one of the small vials he took out of the container, and just as carefully replaced it. He typed a few more commands into the device and the lid shut with a hiss, letting out all oxygen and other gasses before ceiling itself tightly.

The doctor turned back around to see the boy looking very interestedly at the container. He smiled at the child's open wide eyed curiosity.

"Do you know what this device is?" He asked. Something about the gleam in the boy's eyes exclaimed he was not from normal Saiya-jin stock. And the fact that he was a hybrid had nothing to do with it.

"I can guess," Gohan said, "It's used to isolate a substance right? To keep other chemicals, even ones in the air from affecting it until you can run tests on it?"

The doctor's dark brown lips curved in an amused smile, "That's right. Anything put in here would be in total and utter isolation status. Of coarse nothing alive would survive more than thirty seconds in one, but anything not living can be preserved for any number of time. Early experiments concluded that a raw piece of meat could be put in one, and three years later be removed in the exact same -- exact same, mind you -- state that it was in when it was put in. It wasn't frozen, there was no sign of rotting, hell, there wasn't even a smell! Scientists have been using this baby ever since to keep samples clean. Fascinating, huh?"

Gohan nodded vigorously and said, "For the short time I've been on this planet I've already noticed that Aeesu-jin scientists have made some remarkable breakthroughs. Would it be all right if I asked you a few questions about some of them?"

The Aeesu-jin hesitated, "I'm a doctor, not a scientists. Besides that, do you know the penalty for debulging top scientific information to an alien?"

"You don't have to tell me anything compromising," Gohan said. He reached into the front of his gi and pulled out the phosphorescent plants he still carried with him. The blacklightish glow had faded severely, but still gave of a few glimmers of pale light, "I'm just curious about things like how this plant was made. Was it gene splicing? Purposeful mutation? Selective breeding?"

The questions brought the doctor back to his younger days when he had been a student teacher, teaching young Aeesu-jin the basics of life in their community. Of coarse, it was a massive, nightmarish trial to him. The children were loud, rude, disrespectful cheaters that couldn't get an honest grade simply because it was 'honest.' Their parents called it ruthless business instinct, natural molding for the future.. He called it poor parenting and spoiled brat-ism.

Sadly, the work was so unrewarding that he gave it up and went to medical school. He had always thought to himself, in those heckling school days, that if just one would ask a good question, then his job was worth it, that his teaching was affecting at least one sharp mind. None of the children seemed interested in learning about the simplistic of society, or the past, or the harmless conspiracies. He worried for the future.

But here was a boy, not an Aeesu-jin child but still a boy, who was finally asking the questions he wanted to hear. And the boy was asking out of the truthful want to understand. He looked so _interested_! He leaned forward from his seat on the examining table in eager anticipation.

"Well, Son Gohan," the doctor said, "Those are very good questions."

* * *

"What is that kid doing in there?" Garlic asked, annoyance creeping into his voice as he shifted in his seat.

Freeza, long since done filling out his paper work and answering his questionnaires, also sat in one of the seats. His legs were crossed and his sharp chin resting on his palm, tail hanging over one of the arms, lazily swaying back and forth, occasionally slapping against his chair. He eyes were fixed on the door through which the boy had vanished. He was growing impatient.

_Tap, tap, tap_, went his tail.

Bojack had not taken a seat. He remained standing by the front desk, arms crossed and his head slightly tilted down. Like Freeza, his attention was focused on the door Gohan had gone through. The blue giant's scowl was deep and in some ways irritated the jagged scar running down his face. His eyes were narrow, ready to fix the kid with a sharp glare the instant he emerged.

_Tap, tap, tap, _Freeza's tail continued to sway to and fro against the chair.

Garlic's eyes were not centered on the door like the other two's. He was looking with dire concentration at Freeza's tail. It swayed back and forth, back and forth. His eyes followed it so much that he was getting a head ache right between his eyes. Each time the Aeesu-jin's tail hit the chair leg his head throbbed, a thick, swollen lump of pain that reverberated through his body like melted fat. He wasn't simply getting a head ache from annoyance at being forced to wait--he had known the hellish agony of being forced to wait years in his own little hell. Year after year, he had developed a good sense of patience.

His body was also suffering. He needed water with a passion. While in his hell, he hadn't needed to drink, but now that he was free to roam the real world again he was feeling the needs of his body. And his body needed water. His stomach hurt, right along side with his head.

_Tap, tap, tap_ Freeza's tail swayed.

The receptionist watched them over his desk top. They looked impatient, irritated. He glanced down at the time kept by his computer. It was supposed to be a simple, routine checkup that shouldn't have taken more than ten minutes, but the boy had been in there for nearly forty. The large blue alien, who looked particularly formidable, was growling deep in his throat. A tone so low it was hardly audible.

"This is ridiculous," Freeza finally said, and stood up. He turned his sharp, crimson eyes on the receptionist, "Can't you go in and see what the hold up is?"

The Aeesu-jin behind the desk nearly declined, shrugging the question off in the lackadaisically typical Aeesu-jin way. But then the blue giant turned his deep, brooding eyes on him, and he felt a cold chill run down his spine all the way to the tip of his tail.

"I suppose I can," the receptionist said, getting out from behind his desk.

He moved to the door to the doctor's office and the other three followed him. The palmed the door open, and the other's pushed in around him to see into the room.

Inside, oblivious to the fact that they were being observed, the kid and the doctor were wrapped up in an in-depth, scientific conversation. Gohan had pulled his legs up onto the examining table and crossed them, leaning back and looking very comfortable. The doctor had set his incredible bulk onto the counter with the sink, his legs crossed and his thick tail strewn across his lap.

"-so what you're saying is that you have three blood types?" the doctor was asking.

"Yeah," Son Gohan said, his boyish enthusiasm shining brightly yet, at the same time, strangely subdued by the intelligence behind his words, "I got curious about it not too long ago so Bulma-san, she's a friend of ours, let me use her laboratory to run some tests on my DNA."

"She must be a very giving person. Most scientists are very possessive about their place of work," the doctor mused.

"Not Bulma. There must be at least five laboratories in the Capsule Corporations building, so she can afford to be giving."

"Ah. So what were your findings?"

"Well, I had originally thought that all of my blood cells would be co-dominant, each either a pure Saiya-jin gene or a human gene. As it turns out, I was only partially right. Not only were there Saiya-jin and human DNA signatures, but a strange third one that Bulma-san's computer couldn't recognize! After hours of further research my studies turned out that the third cell was a mutation in which the human and Saiya-jin sides had fused to create a new muta-"

Only then did the two of them notice they were no longer alone.

"Dr. Koda," the receptionist said, his voice slightly strained, "What on Aeesu-sei are you doing? Don't you know we have people waiting?"

The doctor quickly got off the table, his feet making a definite thump sound as he landed, "I was checking the subject's background. It is within my limits, Franzen-san, or are you doubing my intentions?"

The last half of what the doctor said had a warning edge to it, and the doctor, a good three feet taller than the receptionist, approached the other until he was within a close proximity. He looked down at the smaller Aeesu-jin with benevolence.

"No, of coarse not..... doctor. I was just wondering when you were planning to be done." Somehow the recepionist, 'Franzen' as the doctor called him, managed to keep his voice even.

"Finishing up right now," the doctor said, "Please, all of you, go wait in the lobby. We'll be done in five minutes."

The receptionist signed and turned to the group of three that had followed him in, "Please, everyone. This way, the wait is almost over."

Freeza, Bojack and Garlic allowed themselved to be ushered out of the room, and soon Gohan and the doctor were alone again.

"Guess we had better finish this up, then," the doctor said.

He waddled back to the intrament table where he sorted through various tools until he found one that looked like a handle with three little green buttons by the thumb, it sported at the top a broad, flat platform the curved up slightly on two of the sides.

He picked it up, thumbed the first button and approached Gohan, who had remained silent since the four people had stormed in. He looked questioningly at the miniture device, and realized it was giving off a soft humming sound. His ebony eyed darted up to look at the doctor.

"It's a skin graphting tool," the robust Aeesu-jin explained, "May I please see one of your arms?"

Hesitantly, the boy raised his left arm. The doctor rested the flat end of the tool against his skin, half way between his shoulder and his elbow. The flat surface shifted and moved, looking like it was melting to fit half way around the boy's arm, perfectly hugging each curve where a muscle jutted out or in, "Please hold still."

He pushed the second button on the miniture device and Gohan jumped involuntarily as a small layer of his skin was stripped from his arm. It stung, and the pain and surprise instantly triggered in his body to intensify his chi. He quickly got control of himself.

When the doctor removed the skin graphter from his skin, there was a small, noticable, square shaped section of pale skin where it had been set. The skin immidiatly surrounding it was slightly red and irritated. Gohan rubbed his arm.

The doctor returned to the cabinet and got out two more isolation containers, opened one of them. He held the skin grapher above the opening--Gohan could see the small portion of his skin dangling from it--and hit the third green button. The jiggly piece of skin fell into the container onto a waiting petre dish. The doctor closed the lid and opened the third container. Retrieving a pair of scissors from the counter, he returned to the examining table.

"I need a few hair samples," he explained to Gohan, who was still absent mindedly rubbing his arm. Nodding, the boy lowered his head; the doctor took a lock of hair between two of his large fingers and with a _snip_ it was no longer attached. "I'll also be needing a few hair samples from your tail."

The doctor reached for Gohan's furry appendage, but the boy quickly jerked it away from his grasp, "I'd like to do that part. Saiya-jin tails are sort of... sensitive."

"So I've heard," the doctor said, and handed Gohan the scissors. The youth carefully snipped a few hairs from his tail and handed them to the doctor.

"Alright, then. That's all I need," the doctor said, marking off a few things on his clip board, "You can go and wait in the lobby while I check the other two."

Nodding, the boy hopped off the examining table and to the floor without a sound. He walked briskly to the exit, which slid open at his approach. Through the door, he could make out Garlic and half of Bojack, waiting impatiently.

"Oh, and Son Gohan?" the doctor called after him. The boy paused and looked back, "Would it be alright to schedule a time when we finish our conversation? We don't have time now, but I can find out where you're staying and contact you later."

Gohan smiled, "I'd like that."

**To be continued..........**

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	7. CM07

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 7**

The rest of the check-ups went without occurance, Bojack and Garlic each checking out within fifteen minutes apart from one another. Freeza was soon handed his licence by the receptionist along with an apology for the wait. They were told to go to Habitation Booth 27-C to be assigned a temporary location to stay in. The doctor emerged from his office to say a quick good bye and they were off.

As the door to Identification Booth 31-K opened to allow the party of four to exit, Son Gohan suddenly became aware of how warm the caverns were compared to the inside of the office. He had adjusted quickly to the low temperature once he had entered, but now that he emerged back into the dark, widing caves he realized just how cold it had been. It made the tunnels seem like a sauna.

"Why do we need to be assigned a place to stay?" Bojack asked as they walked down one tunnel, following Freeza by the waning light of the flourecent plants Gohan still carried with him. They turned left, then right, then right again, then they came to a sudden, dramatic down slope that they were forced to fly down for nearly six minutes, "Why can't we just stay out side where the temperature is more agreeable?"

Freeza didn't answer right away. He led them right two more times, then down a gradual bend to the left. His small pale body casting strange shadows in the dying black light, his skin hardly glowed now that the plant was nearly burned up; rather, he looked like an shadowy ghost, barely flitting in and out of sight. Soon he would vanish all together and they would have to follow him by sound alone.

"It's hardly ment for our comfort," he finally said, vanishing around a right turn, "It's for them to keep track of us until we leave."

The others quickened their pace lest they lose sight of him for good.

"They only collected you three's genes; they haven't tested them yet," he continued once he was sure they were following him again. It was sickening how lacking their navigation skills were, "So until they're sure how safe it is for you to roam around it the public, they'd like to keep an eye on you."

"I'm probably older than you," Bojack said, "I don't need people to 'keep an eye on me.'"

Freeza's shrug was barely audible in the dark, "Like they care. Besides, they don't really trust off-planet Aeesu-jin anyway."

"Who are 'they'?" Gohan asked quietly, rubbing one of the planet leaves between his thumb and forefinger. The juices that came out shone brighter than the dim leaves. He smeared the juice on the other fronds where they sank it, temporarily making the plant glow brighter. It wasn't much of a difference, but it was enough to keep the light going a few more minutes. He said a silent thanks to doctor Koda for telling him about that little trick.

"Them. The guys in control," Freeza snorted, "Of all the corperations on the top floor, I don't think there's a handful that have any real trust or liking to off-worlders. Chief Bureau of Legislature, Backlash, the Three Bureaus of Corperate Safety and Public Protection; the list goes on. Within the next hundred years about two hundred more will sprout up."

Gohan acknowledged with silence as he rolled a second leaf between his fingers, releasing the juices and rubbing them on the plant's other leaves. It was dying out faster now, some of the leaves had already given way to darkness, it was almost incredible to Gohan at how fast the dead leaves withered and shrivled and shrunk the instant the light left them. Behind them was a trail of dead leaves that had fallen off on their own.

And still they continued down the tunnels; up, down, right, right, left. It was a rediculious trail that left Gohan dizzy as he wondered how deep this mountain went and how many miles of tunnels spanned the entire civilization in all. Then he wondered if there were other mountains with caves just like this one. He wondered if he had greatly underestimated the size of the population on the planet.

The kept moving, never slowing their pace because Freeza never slowed his, despite the fact that the once lush leaves had dwindled down to a sorry number of four and were dying fast. Gohan continued to rub the leaves for their shining juices, but the instant he did they were fading again.

Another leaf died and fell off.

Down to three leaves.

They followed the small, agile form of the petite Aeesu-jin as he continued to dart from one hall way to another. They traveled in silence, their feet moving with the grace and nimbleness of a expirianced warrior--silent and stelthful as ninjas and uncountable more deadly.

Two more rights, down for five minuted, left, left, right.

Down to two leaves.

They had to squint their eyes to see, and despite the pethetic amount of light Freeza seemed to pick up his pace, increasing his speed to an all out run. The others were now less silent in their travel, their toes snagged on unseen rocks that jutted up beneath their feet. They bumped into eachother occationally, shoulders brushing together as they tried their damndest to keep up. Each time the contacted the sprang away from eachother in revultion.

Downward for three minutes, left, right, right, up for one minute, left.

Down to one leaf.

It was now a mass of stumbling feet. Gohan, unaccustomed to clausterphobia, was begining to feel closed in. His insticts screamed for wide open spaces, a reassuring breeze, hell, _sight!_ He and the others kept right at Freeza's heels to keep sight of him so that they wouldn't get lost in this dark, cold hell where they would soon surely go mad and start to blast their way to the freedom above. Bojack stumbled onto the back of Freeza's feet, causing the Aeesu-jin to momentarily stumble. Everyone behind him had to come to a screeching halt to avoid a pile-up. Freeza ran even faster, the three following him did the same.

Left, right, right, sharp turn left, gradual turn left.

The final leaf fell to the ground where it was instantly trampled under foot.

In that one instant of total darkness, hardly half a second before Gohan felt he would scream that he was suffucating, Freeza stopped short infront of a door leading off of the hall way. The other three slammed into him, having not seen he had stopped. There was a brief untangling of limbs before the four of them quickly moved away from one another--each repulsed and horrified that they had even came into contact.

There was a brief pause as they gained their breath. Though the trek itself had cost them hardly an ounce of power to travel, with exception for Freeza, the closed in environment had their nerves suffering, their hearts racing, and their chi's hardly in line. In the silence, the darkness could almost be felt, smothering, suffocating, clogging pores. Despite the chill, Gohan was sweating. It just didn't feel natural to him -- the total and absolute lightlessness. The cramped, winding tunnels. The cold. He wondered momentarily if this was what if felt like to be dead.

The thought made Gohan shudder, and mentally scold himself for being so childish as to be afraid of something as menial as the dark when he should more be concerned about the three antagonists he was traveling with.

Only then did he notice that there was a dim light flitting down on them from above. Looking up, he saw that the door Freeza had stopped in front of had the words 'Habitation Booth 27-C' printed above it in fluorescent fibers hardly thicker than strands of hair. He sagged with relief. They were finally there.

Freeza thumbed a button off to the side, and like all the other doors they had thus encountered, this one slid open with a pleasant swish. The entire hall was immediately cast into eye-scalding light from within, it wrapped around each side of the door frame, casing paler light down either side of the hall ways. The darkness that was out of the light's reach looked even darker than it had when Gohan and the others were in it.

The boy's eyes crossed involuntarily and squinted as he tried to shield his face from the sudden intensely bright onslaught, while at the same time enjoying sight once again. The ability to make out detail never felt better. He was the first one to get out of the hall way and through the door, no sure exactly were he would be stepping into but reasoning that it would _have_ to be better than that maddening darkness.

And he was right. Even as the other four crowded into the well light room before them, Gohan was already taking in the room's design. It wasn't much different than Identification Booth 31-K, which caused Gohan to assume that Aeesu-jin weren't very elaborate when it came to decor. Still, like the other place, it was not an unpleasant atmosphere. The carpet in this room was a powder blue, which accented the sky blue walls, and the cealing was lined with too-bright lights that burned the eyes. There were two walls of seats in this room as well, just like the Identification office, and a similar receptionist desk sat in one corner. The only difference this room had in design from the other room was that one solid wall was nothing but a mirror, it stretched from the point the walls met the carpet, straight up to the cealing.

Gohan was too busy examining the theme of the room to immidiatly notice his reflection in the mirror. When he did see himself, he was more than a little surprised. Since he was standing almost right next to Bojack, he looked smaller than ever, dwarfed, tiny, vulnerable. He wondered if that was how Bojack saw him, and hoped not. His size was not the only thing that troubled him. From the long-term exposure to the darkness, his pupils were dilated, making him look hazy, listless, disoriented. There were the begining of bags under his eyes--proof that he hadn't gotten enough sleep the night before--which added to the disgruntled look. His hair was even wilder than usual, he hadn't had time to brush it this morning, so while the top part of his head was covered in irrational, wild spikes that jutted out every which-way, his bangs hung down speratically over his eyes and ears.

He looked terrible.

Besides that, now that he had stopped moving, his body started to inform him about the lack of sleep the bags under his eyes so loudly described. His arms and legs felt akward, his fingers felt thick, his eyes felt muddy, his skin felt greasy and unwashed.The light above still seemed to hone in on his squinting eyes.

_Why am I only feeling this now?_ He asked himself.

He assumed his curiosity and enthusiasm about coming into contact with a new cultur had helped him forget he was tired. His conversation with Dr. Koda had been so refreshing it had once again banished his tiredness right from him. But now that he was here, after the nerve wracking ordeal of having to travel through nearly total darkness, he was finally paying the toll as acute drowsiness crept across him like a warm, fuzzy blanket.

He suddenly had to jerk his head up as he almost fell right off his own feet. He hadn't even noticed his eyes had closed, and he hadn't been aware he was unsteadily swaying back and forth in exhasted delirium. He shook his head violently in a feeble attempt to rid himself of the grody feeling. It only partially worked and his sight cleared enough to make out the form of Freeza standing at the receptionist desk, Bojack and Garlic on either side of him.

The boy didn't bother joining them. He made his way closer to the mirror, hardly three inches between his nose and his reflection's. He squinted into his own eyes, pulled back one eye lid to expose slightly blood shot eyes. He groaned quietly to himself as he saw that his fingers were stained slightly blue from the plant juice he had rubbed between them. It smelled slightly acidic.

He hoped that wherever he was going after this, there would be a bath.

"Just can't stop staring at yourself, can you?" Garlic's voice grated on Gohan's nerves.

The boy glanced back to see that the three of them had finished talking to the receptionist and were making their way to a different door than the one they had entered through.

"We have to go back into the dark?" Gohan found himself asking, his voice not so much as scared as frustrated, "The plant we used is totally gone, we won't be able to see."

"Idiot," Freeza's voice had the peculiar way of murmuring and exclaiming at the same time, "If you had been paying attention, you would have heard we here entering the inhabited area of this specific civilization. It's well light were there's heavy population."

Gohan turned his ebony eyes on the floor to avoid them betraying any feelings he was expiriancing. He never had been good at acting. Still, the flush of embarassment that creeped subtly across his cheeks also held a minute amount of adrenaline. Just the thing he would need for another heckic, dizzying journey. Aside from that, even his groggy mind registered the small fact about lighing. His thoughts flipped to the large cavern they had started in, teeming with errant Aeesu-jin going from point A to point B with seeming little else on their mind. Obviously, it was a heavily populated area. It had been well light.

While he had been going through the dark, smothering tunnels, he didn't believe they had seen a single person besides themselves. It was unpopulated, thus unlight. It made sense when thought of that way. The mountain was incredibly large from the outiside, inside it was beyond simply large, it was monsterious; Gohan had no doubt it spanned miles underground as well. Lighing it must take phenominal amounts of energy. By lighting only the areas that needed it, they were saving energy that could be used for the puplic's benefit.

It made perfect sense to Gohan.

Thinking about the benefits of light conservation had saved Gohan from further embarassment, as the red flush that rested on his cheeks deminished and the situation was forgotten.

Freeza led them out of Habitation Booth 27-C and through a new door. Then entered into a hall that was a far cry from the primitive, unkept caves they had, as of yet, been using; Gohan was now begining to realize they had been using not only unpopulated tunnels, but unused ones. Ones that, maybe, hadn't been used for years before them. This hall was a pleasant, simple, efficiant use of space, it had a cream-colored tile floor, beige textured walls and a cealing that was lined with halogen lights as far as they eyes could see. And there were Aeesu-jin, lots of them.

"There aren't many off-planet Aeesu-jin visitors, are there," Gohan asked quietly, wondering again why, through all his control of motor skills, he still hadn't managed to sever the link that connected his mouth to his curiosity. He hadn't intended to ask anything. Once again he damned his curiosity.

"I told you, off-planets aren't exactly liked, much less made welcome. If one's born an off-planet, they would do good to remain that way," Freeza's voice was shockingly similar to the monotone the other on-planet Aeesu-jin had used. Gohan supposed he was either falling back into the habit without realizing it, or he was trying to appear more like the on-planets so he would better fit in. Freeza added to his last statement, "Now, shut up."

Gohan didn't bother even being offended. Kami knew he had been told to shut up by Vegita enough that he _should_ be used to it. If what Freeza said was indeed true, it would once again corrospond with the circumstances Freeza had lived in. The Aeesu-jin must have been born off-planet, King Kold, Gohan suspected, had been an off-planet since birth as well. And perhaps his father. The young halfling had a feeling the off-planets and the on-planets didn't change their roles very much; perhaps hundreds of generations of Aeesu-jin had only seen their home planet once or twice at best.

It was baffling, facsinating, and intriguing to the boy all at once. He had to all but swollow his tounge to keep him from persuing the topic.

The four of them--an odd bunch indeed, when compared to the normalicy of the other Aeesu-jin in the hall--had an uncomparably easier time following Freeza than they had in the tomb-like maze. With the bright lights over-head and the well defined floor, walls and cealing, it was merely a task of navigating through the other people.

And even the other Aeesu-jin around them were interesting. They came in every size, shape and color--ranging from hardly up to Gohan's hip to twice, hell, three times his size, towering over him as they passed one another without even a glance in his direction. Some of them had horns, jutting our from the backs of their heads, the sides, from below their ears from above their temples to one very conspicuious Aeesu-jin that caught Gohan's eye who had a single horn pointing out from between his eyes. Some didn't have any horns at all. Most had shiny, metalic looking accessories on their heads and shoulders, varying from gleaming black to pure, snowy white. Burnt ocr and sandy yellow, hunter green to bright emerald, purple, violet, lavender, saphire, and a couple bloody reds. The only real thing they had in common were their long, thick tails that waved confidentally behind them.

Time past far quicker now. Too fast for Gohan, who was soaking in each different looking Aeesu-jin like they were the sweetest of eye candy. Eyes wide, he never looked in the same place for too long; once again his chronic curiosity slammed the tiredness right out of him.

He also noticed, however, that the other Aeesu-jin were staring at him, Freeza, Garlic and Bojack with somewhat less enthusiasm than Gohan was looking at them. They were downright glaring, and Gohan was nerviously reminded that on-planet Aeesu-jin didn't like off-planets, and that dislike would no doubt be passed on to the non-Aeesu-jin people with them. Gohan felt momentarily unnerved by the united look of dissapproval.

The only question that nibbled at him at the moment was how the blasted on-planets knew Freeza was an off-planet in the first place! He dismissed it as he allowed himself the luxury of lackadaisical observation. Might as well not wonder.

Freeza led them at a more leasurly pace through the still winding, but not smothering halls. Left, right, right again, Gohan couldn't keep track of their path. Occationally, the only inclination that they were going any other way than horizontal would be when he noticed his ankles were pivoting more and more to accomidate a steeper slope to the tiled floor. The slope was nearly always downward, causing Gohan to wonder just how many miles below ground they had travled.

Freeza turned down one more hall way that led hardly ten feet until it narrowed and stopped short at a different looking door. This door was narrower, the top of the door was hardly a foot above Gohan's head--custom made to comfotably allow passage to a smaller, younger Aeesu-jin. It would be a tough squeeze for Bojack, the boy could tell merely by looking.

When Freeza hit a button to the side--one amoung many, Gohan noted--the door didn't slid open like the others did. Rather, a chiming sound could be heard from the other side of the door. Like a door bell. In such a foreign place, the boy hadn't thought something so familiar could have been found. It was mildly amusing.

A younger sounding voice could be heard inside--the door was too thick to make out distinct words, but Gohan thought he heard something like, "Papa, someone's at the door." An older sounding voice said something even less audible; there was a quick shuffling from inside, a thump, a little more shuffling, then nothing.

Gohan, Freeza, Bojack and Garlic waited in silence before the door for an instant.

A quiet _swish_ later, and the door finally opened, revealing a slightly flustered looking Aeesu-jin. Light green skin and eyes, horns that swept back like a billy-goat and a slightly stubby tail, perhaps mildly scrawny arms and legs, his eye-level was dead even with Gohan's chin. He wasn't exactly a shining example of the race, but he had a soft featured face and a quick smile; Gohan could find no complaint with his appearance.

The youth was also pleased to find he wasn't greeted by a frigid attack of air when the door opened. Rather, the air inside seemed slightly warmer, soothing to his skin, which was slightly raw from constant exposure to the low tempurature.

"Are you Sunow?" Freeza asked as, without invitation, he shouldered his way past the smaller Aeesu-jin and inside. Garlic and Bojack pushed in behind him, the latter having to duck and turn sideways to enter.

"Yes, welcome to my home, you must be Freeza," Sunow said, drawing his lips tight to keep from snarling--since his first meeting with an off-planet traveler, he had come to see most of them were rude, pushy, and probably a bad influance to his children. This one didn't seem to be any exception.

He turned his eyes back to the door way to see that the last member of the group was still standing in the hallway outside the door. Sunow was surprised to see it was only a child, perhaps a few years younger than Forester. His short, coal black hair dangling down over his coal black eyes; the boy glared through the doorway at Freeza and the other two. He looked as discusted about their rudeness as Sunow felt. The Aeesu-jin kept his face straight, resisting a smile of amusement.

"Please," he said with a gesture, stepping out of the way, "Come in."

The boy smiled a mixture of politeness and shyness and silently slipped past him and inside.

"I hope my home suits you during your stay here, Freeza-san," Sunow said, hands folded in front of him, "I'm afraid I wasn't informed you had so many men with you or else you might have been put in a more suiting location. We have only three bedrooms."

Freeza didn't say anything as he walked around the room, inspecting corners and running his pale finger tips along table tops. His eyes narrowed as he scrutanized a couch that lined one wall, picking distanefully at a piece of lint nestled on one of the cusions. Finally, he sighed condecendingly and folded his arms across his chest.

"It will have to do."

Sunow noticed the boy narrow his eyes and tighten his lips, as though he were about to chastize the other Aeesu-jin but was resisting.

"Am......well, since you will be staying here, I think it would be nice to make proper introductions. As you four may have caught, my name is Sunow. I have two children--they're in their rooms right now--Forester and Eesei. I hope they don't bother you during your stay."

The boy with the coal colored hair paused for a second before saying in a polite, yet surprisingly confident voice, "I'm Son Gohan."

The other three's introductions were far less protocal, quite literally, they merely grunted their names before returning to disinterestedly inspect his house.

"Freeza."

"Bojack."

"Garlic."

Sunow found his attention riveting it's way back to the boy, who, unlike the others, stood quietly by, allowing only his eyes to do the inspecting, "My son might be around your age, how old are you Son Gohan?"

They boy tapped at the ground with a toe, his furry brown tail, which Sunow only now noticed, curled down around one of his legs, hooking absent-mindedly around one of his ankles, "_Juusan-sai_, thirteen."

_A few years younger_, Sunow reasoned, _but seeming decades more mature._

"We'll have to introduce the two of you."

The boy only smiled and tilted his head back to look down the hallway leading to the bedrooms. A silence filled the room, broken only by the occational squeeking sound that came from Bojack's boots as he paced the room.

"Oh, Sunow-san?"

The Aeesu-jin turned his head to the quiet voice of Son Gohan, realizing this was the first time the boy had spoken without being spoken to first. "Yes?"

"Would this place by any chance have a bath?" His face was slightly red as he asked, his tail curling tighter around his leg, the end tapping at the toe of his boot.

"Of coarse, down the hall, first door on the left. Take your time, we even have warm water here," the Aeesu-jin smiled. He had noticed the boy had his arms wrapped around his shoulders from the instant he came in. Warm-blooded organisms never really did well on planet Aeesu.

"Thanks," Gohan said, already half-way down the hall.

**To be continued..............**

**Previous Part**** -- Contradicting Mission -- Next Part**

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	8. CM08

_Suggested drink to go with this fic: Dole 100% Pinapple Juice. Makes for good, juicy, Gohan fun; great taste, low on fat. Take it from me._

* * *

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 8**

The bathroom was literally just that. A room with a bath. From what Son Gohan could see there was no toilet, sink, or anything other than a tub, which was rather on the large size, and a full wall mirror. The bathtub could hold six people easily, or, perhaps, one very _large_ person. That was the most likely reason, the boy figured. A huge person. Aeesu-jin had long spanning lives, and, as Gohan was beginning to presume, didn't seem to stop growing as long as they lived, leaving monstrously proportioned people like Dr. Koda and Freeza's father.

Either way, the tub was large and inviting looking, even without water in it, and Gohan's skin felt decidedly greasier knowing he could now wash himself.

In warm water.

Away from the filthy presences of Freeza, Bojack and Garlic.

He smiled.

The tub was about seven by six feet in diameter, four feet deep in the center, the edges at about three, sloping slowly down in the middle where the drain was. Three of the four sides had tiled benches that jutted out a foot and a half, on the fourth side, the tap stuck out of the wall, two handles -- one red to obviously represent warm water and one blue to signature cold -- were positioned on either side.

He sat down on the ground and took off his boots, gratefully wiggling his toes in the cool air. He hadn't been wearing socks, and despite the cold his feet always felt stuffy. He sat for a moment in silence, his legs stuck straight out ahead of him, his back to the wall, his tail twined lazily around his hip to rest in his lap. He surveyed the room listlessly, fully aware he was getting drowsy again and allowing himself to not care.

The full-wall mirror, to the right of the wall against which the boy sagged, made the room look twice as big. Gohan tilted his head to see his reflection in a sideway-ish perspective. Now that he knew he would have the chance to rest, he wasn't nearly so critical about his appearance. In fact, he thought he looked downright funny, sitting on the ground like a ragdoll, feet splayed out before him, with his head cocked to one side, eyes half lidded.

He realized he was about to fall asleep right then and there, and fought his way back to awareness. Forced himself to recognize the danger of freezing now that he wasn't moving to keep warm. Forced himself to realize his feet were getting cold, feel the icy tiled wall against his back. Forced himself to feel the cold ground under his bottom.

With a sigh and a grunt, he got up again, the tiled floor unpleasantly chilly under his bare feet. He undid his belt as he walked around the tub to the side where the tap was located, letting it drop to the floor without a care. He slid his armbands off his wrists, letting them join his belt, before he turned the red knob. Not just warm but _hot_ water instantly gushed out of the faucet, sending up spumes of rebelliously warm steam into the chilly air of the room. The water made a crashing sound as it hit the bottom of the bath, but Gohan didn't mind.

The boy turned the blue knob, allowing the cold water to mix with the hot, making a pleasantly warm temperature. He held his hand under the running water for a moment to make sure it was just right, and, when satisfied, stepped away.

While he waited for the tub to fill, he stripped off the top half of his orange gi and the weighted dark blue shirt beneath. He paused to study his upper arm in the mirror, where a nasty little square of skin was missing -- the place the good doctor had grafted off a sample of him to study. He hissed quietly as he tenderly probed the tender, pink area with his finger tips. It was still slightly sore, red, swollen.

He gave a little shake of his head, turning to check on the water. The tub was half full already; the steam rising off it's surface had already fogged up the top half of the mirror. After splashing his hand in warm water for a moment, the boy quickly finished undressing. He sat on the end of the bath his feet dangling in the rapidly filling tub, resting on the now submerged bench.

When the water level had reached mid-calf, he reached over and turned the water pressure off. The room was cast into immediate silence; the only sounds were the quiet, wet sounds of the water lapping at his legs and the drip, drip, drip from the faucet. With a contented sigh, the boy slowly slipped the rest of his body into the warm water, sliding over the benches to kneel, shoulder deep in the warm water. The movement was followed by a wet, splashy sound that echoed against the tile and mirror -- now totally fogged over. The sound bounced back and forth for nearly a minute before dying off.

After enjoying the silence for a moment, the hot water reaching up and splashing teasingly at his chin, the boy took a deep breath and dove his head underwater. Beneath the surface, there was even less sound, just the groggy, slowness warm water always seemed to radiate. It was so warm he could _feel_ his pores opening. Under the water, his hair swayed and gently tugged at his scalp, his muscles slowly started to relax as the tenseness was swooshed out of him. His tail gently bobbed around behind him, lazily following the currents of the water. He blurbled a few bubbles from his nose, felt them tickle up over his forehead to the air above.

He broke through the surface of the water, throwing his head back as he did so, sending glistening droplets of water into the air. The little splish splash sound the droplets made as they came flitting back to the water sounded like bells playing out a beautiful music ment only for him. Sighing again in contentment, he stood up in the water and waded his way to the edge of the tub where he sat down on the bench. Propping his arms on the lip of the bath, head back, he streched his legs, pointed his toes, then went totally limp, his head resting on the edge of the tub.

His attention was drawn to the fogged over mirror. He could no longer make out his reflection in it, only slight shapes and color differences. A darker splotch where his ink-black hair was, a touch of peach for his face and arms. The rest of the reflection was just a collaboration of different shades of white, a darker shade by the tub, the faucet, his clothes scattered across the floor. It no longer looked like a mirror. To the boy's sleepy mind, it looked like a portal, a doorway to reality he had walked through the instant his feet hit the water.

On the other side of that mirror was where all the bad things in life were. All the evils that lived in his memories and in himself were on the other side, out of his reach, unable to touch him with their unholy hands as long as he floated in his warm water and thought soothing, drowsy thoughts. On the other side, he would have to fight again. He would have to think about all the bad things again. All the terror, pain, humiliation, guilt. All in a different dimention. Unable to reach him. At that one moment, he was a single second away from pure, unscathed bliss.

All too soon, like all the other things in his life that dared to make him feel good, it came crashing to an end.

"Hey! Who's in our bathroom! Papa!"

The voice that could easily be heard coming from the other side of the bathroom door was neither old or young. The boy recognized it as the same voice he heard through the door when they first arrived. Sunow had said he had a son a few years older then Gohan, hadn't he? Forester. That was his name.

And suddenly the room was no longer a beautiful, white, holy haven away from all the twisted, evil things he had been forced to come to terms with. It was a bathroom. A bathroom, and he was totally naked. He was totally naked, on a foreign, freezing planet, not more than thirty feet away from three people that would kill him if they had half a chance. This was enemy territory, he had a mission, failure ment he would cease to exist.

This was not a time to relax. He was only taking a bath to clean himself, not for luxory.

He thrust his head underwater and pulled it back up again. He wished he had soap to do a better job as he washed his face with the palms of his hands, ran the water through his hair and scrubed at his scalp. Worked as best he could behind his ears, his neck, under his arms, and the rest of his body. He finished his quick cleaning job hardly ten minutes after he had heard Forester's voice. He hoisted himself out of the tub, unplugging the drain as he went.

He used his hands to try to slick some of the water off of his body, sending little droplets of water in every direction. He ruffled his hair and shook his head. He was glad he was keeping his hair short, it dried faster that way. Gently as he could he squeeze out some of the moisture that had collected in his tail. Still rather wet, he pulled his boxers on, his pants quickly following. He tied on his belt and tugged on his armbands. Slinging his orange gi shirt and weighted dark blue under shirt over his shoulder, he picked up his boots and made his way out of the bathroom.

* * *

There just didn't seem to be anything for them to do at the moment, Bojack noticed. Once he had finished checking out the small living room and three bedrooms -- he was assigned the biggest one due to his incredible size -- he had quickly grown bored. Freeza and Garlic had vanished into their own rooms to do kami-know-what, and Bojack was far from caring. Plopping down on the sofa, his legs drawn up to span the entire length, leaving not a cushion exposed, he folded his arms behind his head and closed his eyes, if not for sleep then at least contentment.

He, like Gohan, was suffering from displacement. Underground, it was stuffy, the air felt dead from over-circulation, all the artificial lights were starting to burn his eyes, it was cold, and he could swear he literally _felt_ the miles of dirt pushing down on him. He knew full well that even if a planet came crashing in on him his chances of survival were pretty high, but instincts could not be reasoned with. It just felt unnatural, end of story.

He opened his eyes again, finding he still expected to see the familiar sky of the planet he grew up on, long forgotten by all but him. It was the only downside to his long life. All the other people, both ally and enemy, in which his people had long ago had dealings with were either extinct or had totally forgotten the name of his once revered race.

The Biraju-jin.

_The name was as ancient as the stars, a long forgotten, quiet sound that rang through Bojack's brain like a roaring winter breeze. Sometimes he wished he had chosen a different path than the one he had taken. He had been tempted by the darkness that lived in all Biraju-jin, like everyone else, but only he and a few other's actually gave into it. The dark power took over him, consumed him, and banded him and his fellow dark-dwellers together, gave them power beyond what is normal._

_He had been insane back then. Even the other's had been afraid of him, even his closest friend Bidu. But they followed him, obeyed him, did as he asked out of their loyalty rather than their dark bond. He had been so caught up in wreaking hell across the galaxy, he didn't even notice them. Didn't even notice the trap the Kaios had set for him. _

_He had been determined to blow up a particularly large star, sending three orbiting planets full of life streaming off into the vacuum of space to slowly freeze to death. It had sounded fun. Bidu and the others were behind him the whole way... and they were right with him when, instead of blowing up the star they had been sucked into it, not to escape for thousands of years._

_When the North Kaio was killed, breaking the seal on the star, and the three of them finally escaped, they went looking for their planet. They looked for months, searching their planet's trajected orbitry path, but there was nothing. Planet Biraju, like all planet's though time, had finally burned out. The core had gone cold, the gravity ceased, and all the inhabitants had rathered to die than to abandon their dead planet._

_It had been a real eye-opener to Bojack. He could no longer go around destroying planets then coming home to rest like he used to. Home was gone. Dead. A lump of cold, lifeless dirt set adrift, no more than a large piece of rock._

_As much as it had put him off, it had gotten to Bidu, Fujin and the others more. And for what seemed like the first time, he had really seen them. Really seen their weary faces, seen their spiritless eyes. And for some reason his heart had hurt at what he saw. And he promised them that he would find a new planet for them to live on, a planet even more beautiful with lush, green grass and blue, sparkling water._

_He raised the hopes of them, all four of them, and it had been his first good deed._

_It had been Earth. Chikyu._

_Quite literally, it had also been the last mistake he ever realized. _

_The battle with the Earthlings had been far more taxing than he expected. He didn't expect a fight from the weak inhabitants, and he intended to take over and let them go on living for him and his friends amusement. He had only intended to kill the strongest warriors -- the ones fighting in that competition -- so that the people of Earth wouldn't have the spirit to fight back._

_But then they came forth. From among the people, unseen until it was nearly too late. With their blazing golden auras and off-white hair, they were spectacular and terrible and intriguing all at once. And standing in their forefront was _Son Gohan_. Bojack had only taken him for a boy. Had only taken them all for mere children compared to him._

_Perhaps he would even have let them live. Kami knew he could have simply killed them from the beginning, before they knew his extent of power, but he had been too curious. Too damned curious. And when the fighting got bad, they had been forced to use their dark power stored in their mystical jewelry they obtained so long ago, when they had first accepted the dark as their own._

_And with that darkness, the insanity returned. But now he had a target. When he had been insane, violent and powercrazed before, everyone and everything had been his target, and he destroyed it as fast as he could in hopes of finding another._

_But this was a special target. This one took effort, a challenge. And he wanted desperately to get his target._

_And his target was that boy. He wanted, needed** to kill him. He wanted to kill that boy. Wanted to wrap his large, muscular hands around that boy's thin little neck and squeeze, crush his windpipe, watch as the life drained out of his face, watch his vital, fleshy skin turn pale and soft, watch his eyes glaze over. And just squeeze the life out of him, make him writhe and scream and try to futily to escape. He wanted to pin the boy's small body down and beat him to death, and even when he was nothing more than a bloody mess he wanted to keep on punching until his knuckles were pulverized and his wrists were broken.**_

_He had been blessed with the chance to twice. Once when Bidu and the others had managed to snare him in their psychic web, but that chance had been botched by that damn Satan man. The other time had been sweet as honey to his mind that comprehended only lunacy. With the boy's squirming body pressed to his hard, broad chest, Bojack could actually feel his body breaking. With each crack that riddled his bones, his screams of agony grew louder, a more satisfying sound he had never heard._

_It was a disappointment when the boy stopped screaming and went limp, amazingly managing to say one audible word before giving in to unconsciousness._

Otousan.....

_Bojack never knew what hit him, but he knew it was not worldly. The dark power he used told him as much. But whatever it was, it sent him flying, separating him from his target, never to get his chance again._

Bojack abruptly came to his senses when the Aeesu-jin's boy suddenly raised his voice- "Hey! Who's in our bathroom! Papa!"

Annoyed, Bojack glared down the hall at that damn Aeesu-jin brat as he stormed into the very livingroom Bojack inhabited, and through it to the kitchen -- or rather a pantry where Sunow kept his exotic drinks for special occasions. Sunow himself also happened to be in the kitchen, reading peaceably from a small mobile computer.

"Papa!" the young Aeesu-jin exclaimed, causing the elder to jump, "I thought you said we weren't going to have anymore company for the rest of the week!"

"It's not company, I'm afraid," the elder said, quietly clicking off his computer and turning to fully face his son. His face was extremely apologetic.

"You don't mean... Aww, papa, not again!"

"I'm sorry, we don't have a choice, Forester. When Heng asks us directly to do something-"

"Papa?" This was a third voice, higher pitched and slightly slurred.

Bojack had been watching them from his vantage point on the couch and was surprised when he looked down onto the pale colored floor to see an even younger Aeesu-jin, so small she had slipped by under his sight. It annoyed him and he snorted quietly to himself.

"Oh, my little Eesei," Sunow's strained face softened at the sight of his sweet little daughter, "What is it?"

The little girl didn't speak for a second as she thought out her words. Her stubby tail -- a trait inherited from her father -- was twined around her ankles and she tugged at her bottom lip with a child-sized finger.

"Who's in the bathroom?"

Sunow smiled, stretching his thin blue lips across his soft featured face, "It's a polite young man named Son Gohan. Now why don't you hurry back to your room and get your spare blankets. You and your brother are sleeping on the couch tonight."

"Oh," Eesei said, her squeaky voice sounding slightly grumpy, "It's _those_ kinda' people again."

"I'm afraid so," Sunow's quiet voice was filled with regret, "But go get your things before you get in these people's way. You don't want that big blue man over there to step on you, do you?"

Bojack couldn't help but smile at the mental picture of him squashing her little body flat under his boots. The little girl took one look at him, finger still hanging out in her mouth, looked back at her father, who only tilted his head, then looked back at Bojack again.

"Uh uh! I don' wanna get squashed!" and with that, she scampered out of the kitchen, through the living room and was making her way -- faster than what Bojack would have thought such a little thing could scoot -- down the hall to her room when suddenly the bathroom door slid open and Son Gohan stepped out, shirtless and damp, drops of water dripping from his bangs, right into the little girl's path.

"Woah!" Both of them exclaimed at the same time as Eesei realized she wouldn't be able to stop in time. Gohan didn't seem surprised at all, and before the little girl could raise her arms to cover he face for impact he caught her under her arms, swiped her off the ground, and spun her around in the air until her momentum died down.

"Weeeee!" The little girl's peals of laughter reached Forester and Sunow's ears, sending both Aeesu-jin running to see what the commotion was.

They both stopped at the mouth of the hall to see little Eesei in Gohan's arms. Her short, chubby arms were wrapped around his neck and her legs were wrapped around his waist, her claw-like feet gripping at his abdominal muscles to stay up. Her tail was also wrapped around him, running up his back and hooking over his shoulder.

She was literally all over him and loving it. He little purple lips were drawn back in a huge smile that showed all the teeth in her mouth and she was laughing so hard she was nearly in hysterics. The jovial situation had affected the boy as he and the little girl both laughed.

"Oh, I'm so sorry about my daughter," Sunow said, rushing forward and prying the little girl off him, "She doesn't look where she's going sometimes."

His laughing abated, but his smile still firmly established, Gohan said, "It's fine, it's fine. Little Trunks is running all over the place at home and he nearly mows me down every time I visit him."

"Trunks?" Forester asked, something about his tone was challenging and he meant it to be. This off-planet, this_ alien_ was trespassing in his home and he would not forgive him for it.

Noticing the Aeesu-jin boy's hostile attitude, Gohan's smile quickly faded as he once again returned to the shy young man Sunow had originally met, "Yes. Trunks is a little kid like her......her name's Eesei, right?"

Sunow nodded and elbowed Forester about being rude before turning his sights down to look at his little daughter, "Yes, it is."

The boy used a corner of his undoned gi top to scrub his hair to speed up it's drying.

"An' you're Songo Han!" Eesei cheered, squirming around in her father's arms so she could face the boy better.

"Son Go Han," Gohan corrected.

"Songo," came the toddler's reply.

"Gohan," the boy said patiently.

The little girl stuck out her lip and said with conviction, "Songo."

Gohan sighed and lowered his head, chuckled to himself.

"I appologize, she get's stubborn over the strangest things-"

"It's alright. I've been called way worse. I can stand to be called Songo by a little girl for a while."

Two doors swished open behind Gohan as Freeza and Garlic entered the hall.

"What the hell is going on here," Garlic announced his presence. Gohan winced as the demon's voice grated on his nerves.

"Don't you know how to be quiet?" Freeza's voice added.

"We're just discussing this youth's name with little Eesei here," Sunow said, smiling proudly down at his daughter.

"Come on, now," Gohan said, turning his back on the two to face the little girl again, "What's my name?"

"Songo Han!"

Gohan slapped himself in the forehead. "Yes. That's right."

The girl grinned.

"Can't we hang out somewhere else besides the hall way?" Forester's adolecent voice suddenly sounded out, "You guys are blocking the bathroom door and I want to take a nice cold bath; Papa always has the heat up too high."

Gohan pressed his cold fingers against his neck to warm them up. The cold didn't really affect most of his exposed, wet body, but his fingers were a tad cold. The Aeesu-jin thought _this_ was too hot? Gohan had a hard time keeping himself from thinking they were insane.

"My son is right," Sunow nodded his head as he set Eesei on the ground, "Shall we make our way to the living room? I have some very exotic drinks and expensive wines you simply must try. Please, come."

He turned and made his way back to the room Bojack--who hadn't moved--was still occupying. Gohan put a hand to his bare abdomen, which felt slightly flatter than it usually did, and wondered if this Aeesu-jin had anything more solid than wine to put in his stomach. He hadn't eaten since dinner last night, and he was sure it was at least late afternoon by now. Perhaps evening. Maybe even late.

Time was impossible to keep track of when the sun is miles of dirt above visibility. Gohan suddenly wished he were wearing the watch his mother had gotten for him that year. He suddenly felt like kicking himself for assuming he would always be able to tell the time by looking at the sun.

One way or another, his body was informing him all too well that he had missed a meal or two and would not stand for it. He ignored the pain in his empty gut, knowing that at the moment, he would have to just tought it out; of all the pain he had endured in his life, he would _not_ be brought down by his own digestive system.

In the living room, Bojack made no motion to make room on the couch for anyone else, stretching and pointing his toes to exclaim his comfort. Freeza nor Garlic wanted to sit down anyway. They each gave curt no-thank-yous and returned to their rooms, nothing else said.

Eesei came jogging out the room Garlic was turning into, nearly knocking him over in her haste. Her arms were loaded with blankets and pillows and two futons, all of which she deposited at Gohan's feet.

"What's all this?" the boy asked, kneeling down to paw through the pile.

Sunow glanced down and said, sounding apprehensive, "Well......I was thinking that you and the other children could sleep out here and the adults could get the bedrooms..........or I suppose I could sleep out here if you want a bed instead of the couch."

"I'm fine, whenever we have guests over at our house for the night Kaasan has me sleep on the living room couch because we don't have any guest rooms. Besides, I've slept on the ground before." Gohan said, picking out the largest futon only to see it was nearly a foot too small.

_Oh, well. I'll make due._ He reasoned and spread it out across the floor.

"Son Gohan?" Sunow asked, "I hope you don't mind my prying, but where exactly do you come from? You talk about your home quite alot."

The boy looked up, slightly startled. Talking to Sunow had made him feel so comfortable he had let things about Earth slip out without a second thought. The Aeesu-jin of this time didn't know what Earth was, and Gohan wanted it to stay that way. But what was he supposed to do? He didn't want to lie, but he didn't want to say anything further about Earth than he had already.

His silence said enough, and Sunow didn't mention it again.

"So who gets the couch?" Gohan asked, tilting his head in question at Forester and Eesei.

"Me, of coarse," Forester snapped, "This is my house and I'm the oldest so I get to call first."

"Fine," Gohan said, digging a pillow out of the pile. He paused when he found the largest pillow and asked Forester in a tone not even he was sure was free of sarcasm, "So does that mean you pick out your blankets and pillows first, too?"

The Aeesu-jin boy locked eyes with the demi-Earthling. They both froze as their whole attention focused on eachother's face. Their surroundings seemed to vanish from existance as they saw nothing but the other's pupils--fire red against coal black, neither blinking, neither breathing.

And suddenly Gohan went cross-eyed.

Before he remembered not to, Forester laughed, closing his eyes as he did so, thus breaking the silent staring contest, "No, I don't sleep with pillows or blankets. They're only for weaklings who can't take the cold."

"I'm not a weakling," Eesei mumbled as she spread out her smaller futon--hardly three feet long from top to bottom.

Gohan said no more as he picked through the pile of blankets, selecting ones he felt would keep him from freezing in his sleep.

Bojack watched the three children as they prepared their beds. The Forester boy stood at the foot of the couch, glaring at Bojack with the potency of a poisoned snake. The great blue giant couldn't help but be amused by the youth's hostile approach at nearly anyone he didn't know. He was reminded of his own youth, and similar emotions held toward strangers. Funny how all walks of life were so different yet horrifically similar when reflecting eachother.

"What are you looking at?"

The young man narrowed his ruby eyes, "You're on my couch. I'm sleeping there, go to your own room."

Bojack smiled, wrinkling up the skin on either side of his eyes, "Well, you'll just have to wait. I'm not getting up yet."

The boy huffed, crossed his arms and leaned agaist the wall to wait. Gohan, kneeling on the ground by the blankets, looked back over his shoulder to glare at Bojack before returning to his task.

Sunow pulled a chair out from the kitched to sit and watch the children while they got their beds ready. That alien boy, Son Gohan. What a strange kid. So polite, so quiet, so _good!_ What in the world would a boy like that be doing with such rough-looking people like the other three with him? They were totally opposite him in every way, a yin to his yan. What could possibly bring them together? It was obvious he was not one of Freeza's servants. None of them served the other, nor did any of them seem to really get along--such a _strange_ group to see traveling together. Why why why.

"Songo?" Eesei's voice brought Sunow out of his musings. The older Aeesu-jin watched as Son Gohan pretended he didn't hear her as he smoothed out a down comforter on top of an already impressive pile of blankets he had selected. The cold must really be bothering him.

"_Songo!_" The little girl said louder.

Son Gohan started humming as though there were no one else in the room but him.

"Gohan?" the girl asked quietly.

The boy turned around, smiling, "Yes?"

"That big blue man," she pointed a stubby finger at Bojack, "Papa said he'd step on me. Would he really do that?"

Gohan's smile faded and he looked down at his bed and dropped from knealing to sitting, rocking back on his heels, arms folded around his knees. His tail curled around his ankles. He said seriously, "Yeah, if he wanted to."

Eesei stuck out her chin indignantly, as though that weren't the answer she wanted, "How do you know?"

Bojack and Sunow both leaned forward to hear his answer.

The boy lifted his head and forced a smile, "Because big people know these kind of things."

"Will I know these things where I'm as old as you?"

Gohan looked into her shining eyes--eyes that had never known death, never seen turmoil. Eyes that had only seen peace, happiness and regularity. He patted her on the head.

"Let's both hope that you'll be older than I was when I started learning such things."

There was a thoughtful silence that followed, leaving everyone in the room to look inward for a second in quiet thought.

A ringing sounded, coming from the computer console by the door.

"Someone's trying to contact us," Sunow said, getting up from his chair, "I'll answer it." He moved across the room.

Eesei snuggled in under the covers over her futon--hardly a sheet rather than blankets. Gohan couldn't help but marvel at the low tempuratures these Aeesu-jin thrived in; he could only hope his metabolism didn't slow durring the night, leaving the household to find his frozen dead body, curled up under the blankets, forever stuck in a fetal position in a futile attempt to conserve heat.

He sure hoped that if that happened, Bojack and Garlic would freeze to death, too. Hell, while his imagination was at it, let Freeza die as well. If he was going down, they were going down with him.

He chuckled to himself that he would be having such morbid thoughts.

"Ah, Son Gohan?" Sunow called from the computer console, "It's for you."

"Coming," the boy said, getting up. Was it just him or was it getting colder? He pulled on his dark blue undershirt, leaving his orange upper garment on his pillow.

Sunow met him half-way across the room and whispered to him, "Why would renowned Doctor Koda be trying to contact you?!"

"Oh, we met earlier today. Nice guy," Gohan said, "We have some things we didn't get a chance to finish discussing."

Sunow looked concerned, but nodded his head as he moved out of the boy's way. At the console, Gohan saw that above a series of colorful buttons--some light up and blinking-- was a small monitor screen. On the screen, he could see the emense shape of the good doctor he had met earlier; it seemed like only seconds ago he had left his office, but when he thought about it, it also felt like years.

"Ah, Son Gohan. I see you found your way to your temporary home. Any complaints? Are they treating you right? I could have a new place found if you dissapprove of your surroundings."

The boy smiled and turned slightly red, "No, no. These are good people. Better than I expected, I admit. They have a kid around my age."

The doctor scowled, his slightly puffy cheeks tightening as he sucked his teeth in distaste, "If you accually think their boy is a good person, either he, or you or you both are insane. I've wasted years of my younger life trying to teach those upstart children and they're nothing but trouble."

Gohan laughed quietly, hoping the others in the room didn't hear him, "Alright, so he does seem a little-"

"Brattish? Ubnoxious? Offensive?" The doctor offered.

"Ethnocentric," Gohan said, "But I've been around worse people, I'll survive."

The doctor shook his head in wonder, "You're a better man than most."

"So what did you want to contact me about?"

"Oh, I managed to work up a good couple of free hours tomarrow and wondered if you could stop by. I have a few strange findings on the tests I ran from the samples I took from you that I need you to explain. They just don't make sense."

"What did you find?" the boy asked, wracking his brain for any other strange genetic occurances he had found when he went on his self-research kick.

"It would be alot easer to just show you. I'm faxing your residence a paper that has the time I'm free. I hope to see you then."

Right on cue, a small slot below the monitor hummed and a long, thin piece of paper slipped out of it. The boy held it up to his face, but only saw a series of unreadable numbers in no logical order he could see. Was this how the Aeesu-jin kept track of time?

"Just show it to your host. He'll take care of it," the doctor said in reply to the boy's puzzled face, "But I really must be going now. Hope to see you tomarrow."

"Right, okay," the boy said, jamming the paper in his pocket.

"Good bye."

"Good bye."

The monitor went dead. Gohan walked back to his futon next to a still awake Eesei and pulled back the heavy layer of blankets and laydown, pulling them up to his chin.

"Is everything alright?" Sunow asked, standing at the foot of the prone boy.

"Yeah, everythings fine. I want to ask you something tomarrow morning about time on this planet."

"Alright, then. Goodnight then, I need to sleep. I've had a kind of hecktic day," Sunow said.

"I know exactly what you mean," Gohan said, turning over on his side to get more comfortable.

Sunow exited the room, turning off the lights as he went. It wasn't total darkness that followed, a soft light still drifted into the room from the lights in the hall way, but it was dark enough to sleep by. Bojack moved to get up at go to his own room when Forester's voice broke the small insertion of silence.

"You two faught eachother, didn't you."

Son Gohan rolled over under his covers to face the Aeesu-jin boy, Bojack settled back into the couch cusions.

"Yes, we did," Gohan answered, eye's hazy with unclear memories. Things had moved so fast the day Bojack arrived he couldn't remember everything- it wall all a smeared, continuious memory of chaos, concern for his loved ones, pain, and the ultimate climax when he had used his full power to defeat Bojack and his men.

"So tell me about it. Tell me the glorious tale about the battle, fighting, close shaves, great sacrafices and a hero with total self confidence."

"Impossible," Gohan snapped, his voice surprisingly harsh, "There's no such thing. Battles are nothing but insanity, a horrible, bloody nightmare ruled only by anger, hatred and fear. Only people who've never really faught before would dare think it could be 'glorious.'"

Bojack said nothing as his eyes looked thoughtfully off into oblivion.

"Okay, then. Don't tell me about your fight with him. Tell me some other fight you've had. I can see it in your eyes, you've been in more combat situations than most of my instructors, I can tell. Tell me a story. An exciting story. You're not sleeping till you do."

"Story!" Eesei jumped in, "Tell us a story, Songo!"

The boy only rolled over in his bed and said nothing.

"I'll tell you a story," Bojack finally said. All three children looked at him, "It's a story my people tell their children when their going to bed."

The two Aeesu-jin children exchanged eager smiles and egged him on with intentive faces. Son Gohan opened his eyes from under his blankets and glanced at the blue giant. But Bojack was not looking at any of them. Ribbons of nostalgia drifted before his eyes like the the wisps of smoke from burning inscense.

And he started his tale just as the tale always began.

"He was a Kami named Biraju............

"He gave up his immortality to live out his life on planet Biraju, but at that time it was without a name. He made the planet inhabitable, forming hundreds of statues shaped like people from the clay and mud on the ground--men, women, young, old, all different and unique. When he was ready, he brought them all to life, and the planet was filled with life, all loving and listening to his words. Peace prevailed on the planet for a thousand years.

"But things changed. Biraju became sick and weak. He eventually died because he gave up his immortality, leaving his two sons--Binu and Biraju--to rule after him. Binu, the oldest, was an evil ruler. He took people's hearts and devoured them, in return giving them power beyond what is normal to go about and do wicked things."

Here Bojack paused, taking the time to gather his words.

"Biraju, the youngest, was named after his father, and he possesed all the goodness and wisdom his father did. He was greatly displeased by his older brother's wickedness. He could not kill his brother, because they were blood related, so he cast a spell on him, cealing him away.

"Binu faught agaist his captivity so hard that he managed to break it enough for him to fit one finger out of his magical cell. From that day on, Binu could only tempt all of Biraju's people, the Biraju-jin, once. And whenever the people refused to give into him, they were given the power of good to protect them for the rest of their lives. But those that gave into Binu's temptation would forfeit their hearts to him and only be able to use their powers for evil-"

Bojack stopped his story here. There was much symbolism in the story, and most did not understand it's true purpose. It was more a myth than anything else, ment to warn children about the dangers of giving in to the darkness that lived in all Biraju-jin.

He looked down at the ground. Somewhere in the story, Forester had sat down on the ground to listen to him better. And somewhere else in the story, he had lay down on the ground.

And somewhere else in the story, all three children had fallen asleep. Forester looked pretty comforable laying flat on his back, his tail under his head as a pillow. He didn't seem to be cold, despite the fact that Bojack's skin was so cold it was riddled with goose flesh. Eesei's small body could be seen through her thin blanket, her tail was ontop of her curled up little body, her small pale hands here folded under her cheek. And Son Gohan.............

Bojack looked at the sleeping boy for what must have been a long time. Only the boy's head was exposed from under the thick layer of blankets. Only an abstract mound could be made out where his body was under all the cover, but he wasn't looking at the boy's body anyway. It was the boy's face. When he was asleep, Son Gohan accually looked his age, if not younger. His boyish features were relaxed, his eyes quietly closed, his mouth was slightly open. The light shining in from the hallways gleamed on the boy's eyelashed where a small amount of moisture had built up.

He looked so innocent. More than any other child in existance ever looked. Not Forester, even little Eesei could ever hope to look so perfectly blameless in all their lives as this boy looked right now. It was almost impossible to comprehend that this was the same wild, inconcievable strong, golden haired demon that had killed him. This was the same person as that emotionless, cold eyed nightmare that had driven a fist through Bojack's guts as though he were made of butter then blasted him to hell with one shot.

Flip sides of a coin. Bojack shook his head and stood, crossing to the hall that led to his room. He paused at the mouth and looked back at the sleeping mound of a boy, heard his quiet breathing as the blankets rose and fell with his chest.

"I'm going to kill you, Son Gohan. First chance I get."

"Not if I don't kill you first, Bojack," the boy answered, "Not if I don't kill you first."

Bojack chuckled and made his way to his room.

**To be continued.............**

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	9. CM09

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 9**

The boy woke up famished.

All through the day before, he had not eaten a bite, nor had he taken a sip of water since the time he woke up to the time he went to bed on that cold, Aeesu floor. As he opened his eyes, squinting in the bright halogen lights shining from above, he took a moment to reorient himself. He still expected to wake up in his own room, in his bed, the whole fiasco nothing more than a product of his unreigned mind. Somewhere along the lines, he had developed the sinking feeling that it was all very real indeed -- quite depressing.

The room was colder than it had been when he went to bed. The air conditioning from hell must have gone into over drive since he went to sleep; no doubt making the Aeesu-jin more comfortable at his expense. He gratefully snuggled his body deeper under the foot of blankets above him, pulling his knees up to his chest and tucking his head under the blankets, blowing on his cold hands. He wrapped his tail around his arms that, despite the many blankets, felt naked.

He had a nasty taste in his mouth, no doubt from not eating and going two days without brushing his teeth. He scraped his fingernails along his tongue, trying to rid it of the nasty, white-colored film that had built up there over night. It didn't help much.

Still, he wasn't too uncomfortable. Despite the cold on the outside, he was nice and toasty under his fort of blankets, like a warm bun cooking in the oven. A warm, glazed bun, like the ones his mother would make him on cold winter nights. With extra butter and brown sugar. So sticky and good smelling... he mentally slapped himself. Forcing himself to dismiss his stomach's screams of agony, the bun named Gohan sighed in reasonable contentment and closed his eyes to try to squeeze in a few more hours of sleep.

At the foot of his bed, a corner of his mound of blankets lifted, letting an unpleasant chill into his warm little blanket haven. He groaned and glared at the little spot of light that tore it's way into the darkness the heavy blankets provided. At first, it was just a small spot of light, letting in only a small draft of cold that tormented his bare toes. He drew his feet closer to his body.

The little speck of light got bigger, and an object, indefinable against the light that so disagreed his the boy's eyes, crept it's way under the blankets with him. Hoping it was a dream, he scooched away from the shadow of an object as far as he could without scooching all the way out from under the blankets. The shadow pushed it's way further under the blankets with him, the cold spot of light enlarging to allow the indistinguishable thing easier passage.

The object touched his leg, and he almost screamed when he realized it was a hand. A hand as cold as death, creeping it's way along his leg. The ice-cold hand was attached to an ice-cold arm. And as the object pushed it's way totally under the blankets with him, he recognized it as the cold-blooded body of an Aeesu-jin.

The Aeesu-jin known as Eesei. Gohan sighed with relief as well as annoyance and he scooted over to make room for her to fit under the blankets with him. The little Aeesu-jin girl curled up under the crook of his arm, the metallic plate on the top of her head feeling like an ice-cube to his once warm armpit while one of her horns jilted the blankets around his head in an uncomfortable angle that allowed cracks of light to spring up around the borders of his breached blanket domain, allowing the enemy -- the cold -- in.

"You're so warm!" she exclaimed, wrapping her freezing cold tail halfway around his torso and working her ice-cold hands up under his gi to rest against his rib cage.

_I **was** so warm!_

It was sheer torture. To Gohan, it felt like he had just come out of the sauna and curled up with a living ice-pack, wrapping it all the way around his body for some lunatic reason.

"I could stay here forever......," the little girl murmured, he very breath was like death as it brushed over his cheek.

"I was just getting up," the boy said, forcing his body to roll out from under the deep layer of blankets and into the freezing light without. He was beginning to despise waking up, and, quite obviously, waking up didn't agree with him much either.

He lay on his back on the carpet outside his warm haven, watching his mound of blankets move around as Eesei took over his bed. His eyes drifted to the other side of the floor where he saw that Forester was still laying asleep, blissfully unaware the youth next to him felt his skin was hardening with ice-crystals. Gohan could see his breath spuming out of his nostrils and mouth as he waited for his body to adjust to the cold.

Not satisfied with the speed of his metabolism, he forced his groggy body to sit up, scrambling around for his boots. He found them at the foot of the couch. Blowing warm air into each before pulling them on, he was glad they were so thick and heat conserving, all the better to thaw out toes. He pulled the orange layer of his gi on, and wrapped one of the thicker blankets around his shoulders before standing up. Looking about the room, he saw the couch was empty -- wasn't Forester going to sleep there? The boy's muddled mind dismissed it. Carefully stepping over the prone body of Forester, Gohan made his way to the kitchen.

He was pleased to see that Sunow was already up and sitting at the small kitchen table, sipping from a mug as he read over something on his portable computer.

"Good morning."

"Oh!" the Aeesu-jin jumped in his seat, "Son Gohan, you're up. I thought you'd sleep for at least two more hours."

"So did I," the boy said sadly, thinking of his warm haven behind him -- now property of Eesei the ice-pack. He pulled the blanket around his shoulders tighter. Sunow watched with fascination as steam rose from the boy's mouth every time he breathed. It was always strange to observe warm blooded organisms.

"Care for a drink? It's warm," Sunow offered, pouring a steaming, amber liquid from a pitcher into a mug similar to the one he had been sipping from.

The boy accepted the brew and held it to his face. Taking a whiff of the substance before daring to ingest it, he could have sworn he smelled caffeine in it. Perhaps coffee's planetary cousin? With a shrug of conviction, the boy took a swig. He nearly gagged. Coffee's _stronger_ planetary cousin.

Sunow laughed, "Careful, the stuff packs a punch! Still, it really warms up the system and kick-starts a day."

"I'll say," the boy said, taking a second, more confident swig The stuff was strong, but also very good. He wondered if he'd ever be able to accept Earth coffee again. It was also pleasant to have something--anything--in his stomach.

Sunow smiled and set down his cup and computer, "You said there was something about Aeesu-sei time you wanted to ask about?"

"Oh, right," Gohan said, cramming his hand into his pocket and exploring around for the piece of paper he had stuck there before going to bed last night. Handing it to Sunow, he asked, "What does the time written here say?"

"Well, in your time, this is about five hours from now," Sunow said, having a hard time trying to accually _explain_ what the series of numbers on the paper said. How does one explain time?

Gohan held the mug to his lips, letting the steam from the warm drink heat up his nose for a moment before taking a few more swallows, enjoying its potency. So he had five hours before he would could go see the doctor? Strange, how the day before he had been so busy, running around, getting identification, checkups, temporary residence, and today.......... Today he had to find some way to fill five hours in a small, three bedroom apartment.

He suddenly remembered something. Speaking his mind's question aloud, he said "How do I get there?"

"Hm?" Sunow asked, pausing in mid-sip.

Gohan felt slightly embarassed, "I don't really know how to move around down here. It's like a maze with no end."

Sunow laughed, setting his coffee down to avoid spilling. The boy lowered his head as his face darkened.

"It's perfectly normal," the Aeesu-jin finally said, "Most aliens don't adjust well here. Even the ones raised here as servants, or have lived here for years. They just don't have it in their blood like we Aeesu-jin. I wonder why the scientists haven't done further study on the subject......." He retrieved his mug, tilted his head back as he drained the last of his drink in one gulp, and took a refill.

"Lack of tests subjects, I imagine," the boy said, pulling a stool out from under the table and sitting across from Sunow. Resting his arms on the table, he leaned forward, looking at the small portable computer. It was hardly more than a squarish, 4x6 flat piece of tech-material with buttons and a screen on it, "What are you looking at?"

The Aeesu-jin suddenly stiffened, pulling the computer out of his sight and putting it under the table, "Nothing. Just the latest details on my assignment."

"Oh?" Gohan asked, not without noticing the sudden turn of character, "What do you do exactly?"

"A freelance director of investigation and information retrieval."

Analysing the words, the boy finally asked, "So you're a detective?"

Sunow tilted his head back, downed his entire mug of coffee, refilling his cup once again, "You're obviously not familiar with Aeesu protocol."

Realizing he was pressing, the boy confined his eyes to his cup, where he watched himself slowly run his forefinger along the rim, "Sorry."

Sunow hadn't gotten much sleep when he went to bed. He lay on his soft mattress, modified to give maximum comfort to his size and shape, and wondered about the mysterious four people that had moved into his house. Something about them made him uneasy, like he felt they were hiding something important from him. But what could they be hiding, with someone so innocent as Son Gohan on their side?

Perhaps he was giving them too much credit. Giving Gohan too much credit. They _were_ off-planets after all; most off planets were criminals, weren't they? Simply Aeesu-jin who had it in big with Heng and decided to abandon planet for the duration of life. So wouldn't that make Freeza a criminal in the least? Or was it his father than sent his lineage spiraling into space, never to be embraced or accepted by the population of planet Aeesu? Or was it his father's father. Or farther back. How far back does an off-planet's family go until it hits the criminal that started it?

Hours and hours of musings wore heavily on Sunow, as he realized the hard way. Rubbing at a still sleep-puffy eye and nursing his coffee, he studied the quiet, polite boy that sat with him at the kitchen table. And what of him? Was he in cahoots with the criminal, or was the innocence of his face true? Something about the shadows in the boy's eyes seemed to kill the innocent look about him. What could this little boy have possibly seen to put that look there? When the light hit him right, he seemed to transform from a young teenager to a withered old man, long since sapped of strength and waiting for life to slip out of him like a mist from a pond. A fresh body with an exhasted soul. The boy downed the last of his coffee and accepted a refill.

Sunow felt sudden--albeit irrational--pity for the boy.

"Nearly everyone in this side of the underground knows where Dr. Koda lives," the Aeesu-jin said.

The boy glanced at him from around his mug.

"And so do I. Tell you what, I'll be going by his office on my way to report to Backlash today, I could always drop you off there on my way."

The boy's eyes widened and he smiled, momentarily chasing the shadows in his eyes away to allow him the boyish composure he deserved, "Really? It won't be out of your way?"

"Directly colinear. Right along my way."

The boy's shoulders sagged with relief, "Thank you." The two exchanged smiles, and for the first time Gohan felt _confident_ that these Aeesu-jin weren't all a bad lot.

A _swish_ sound drifted into the kitchen from the livingroom, no doubt one of the automatic doors to the bedrooms. The boy and the Aeesu-jin became silent as they heard the sound of feet walking downt the hall, through the livingroom full of sleeping children. Hardly seconds later, the door frame was filled--or half filled--with the form of Garlic. He had removed his cape during the night, which for some reason made his head look abnormally large. Gohan didn't bother smiling, he just didn't have the energy to show pleasure when one of _them_ was around.

"Drink?" Sunow offered, tapping on the pitcher of coffee, "It's warm."

The gremlin's eyes darted to see Gohan was already drinking the substance, then at Sunow's mug. With a sigh of what sounded like condecention, he gave a hardly audible nod; yes, he would like a drink. Sunow poured a third mug--Gohan only now noticed the Aeesu-jin had set out the extra cups in advance. After handing the demon a warm cup, the boy could still count two empty ones, just waiting for Freeza and Bojack to wake up and put them to use.

Only two cups?

"Doesn't Forester drink this stuff?" The boy asked quietly; he always seemed to loose his enthusiasm when one of _them_ was around. It was a curious fact that had caught Sunow's attention. He was begining to think the boy's change in composure was born from more than just conflicting ideas in manners. The boy seemed to watch the gremlin's every move as though he expected him to suddenly lash out and attack. All Garlic really did, however, was pull the last chair out from under the table and sit down, his chin hardly two inches above the table-top. Sunow found it funny, anyway.

He turned his attention back to Son Gohan's question.

"My Forester? Goodness, no. He hates the stuff, says it tastes like paint," Sunow said, adding, "Most Aeesu-jin kids don't like it."

The boy nodded his head and returned his attention to his coffee. He seemed to find something highly fascinating about running his finger tips along the rim, an action Sunow took as a newly born nervious habit. What, oh _what_ linked Garlic and Son Gohan together? It seemed almost crazy, but Sunow felt like the two of them should fighting, trying to kill eachother. Not just that, but like they should _all_ be fighting eachother, waging a crazy, violent, four-way war of destruction and death, eventually concluding in only the supreme winner left standing.

A strange thing to feel when you've only met the people the night before. Still, the rigid way Gohan and Garlic sat, keeping constant vigil over one another through the corner of their eyes as they sipped their coffee in edgy silence made it hard to dispel such a wild notion.

Garlic stood.

"Well, this has been pleasant," he said, and headed toward the kitchen exit. He paused in the door way as though he were considering saying something further, but only drew back his blue lips to reveal his sharp canines at Gohan in a toothy smile. He exited the room; not long after Sunow and Gohan heard his door swish open and close, presumably, behind him.

Sunow observed the look on Son Gohan's face was darker, moodier, than it had been when he originally said good morning. A fact that only fed Sunow's curiosity. Sure the little gremlin was a generally rude fellow, but so far, Sunow couldn't find any truely tangible reasons to despise him. The whole time Sunow had accually known the little man, he couldn't have spoken twelve words. He hadn't been noticably unpleasant this morning--despite the carnivorous grin he had sicced on Gohan. So why did the boy have such an obvious dislike of him?

He seemed like the forgiving type of child, not letting bad emotions fester....... But what about that shadow that occationally graced his eyes? The boy must have seen many bad things in his life, and perhaps Garlic and the other two were part of that badness.

_But then why the hell would he be working with them?!_

"Son Gohan, may I ask a question that may border-line nosey?"

The boy looked up. The darker look Garlic's presence had put on his face dwindled and faded; perhaps it was good to keep his mind off darker things. But Gohan was nervious. What if Sunow asked about Earth again? Or about the mission? What could one say to answer what they were doing on Aeesu-sei in the first place?

_We're here from a future where you can count the number of Saiya-jin and Aeesu-jin alive, combind, on one hand. We're here to save your planet from getting destroyed prematurely--oh, rest assured it will be destroyed in due time, just not yet. How did we get here? We're not sure exactly. Some Kami from another reality just sort of teleported us here--yes, another reality, don't look at me like that. How did he know about your planet's fate? We don't know. What exactly is going to happen here? We don't know, we're just hoping to get lucky enough to find out. So, who's up for another round of coffee?_

Gohan was quite sure he'd be better off simply checking himself into the local asylum. He had been on Aeesu-sei for a good two days plus and was still having a hard time accepting it. How could anyone else?

"What is your connection to your three companions?"

The boy licked his lips. "What exactly do you mean?"

Sunow thought for a second, "Well......okay, you three obviously don't get along. Those three seem to hate you with a vengance; from what I've seen, you don't exactly carry affection for them. What causes you to harbor this mutual dislike?"

"Before arriving here, I don't think any of them knew eachother. They are connected through me." Gohan paused to wonder if that made sense, "And they know me because......well, we just met before."

"Meeting doesn't usually bring about loathing."

"I didn't say we met on friendly terms."

"Are you going to elaborate?"

The boy sighed. Now came a second problem. Memories. Unpleasant, hair-raising memories that would be better left alone, forgotten. A nightmare in which he had woken up from and would never have to worry about having again. Gohan was pretty sure it was an unhealthy way of looking at the bad things in the past, that it would probably be better in the long run to just accept all that happened to him so he could start finding a way to heal his battered soul. Perhaps some day he would, too. Not right now, though. This was not the place to try coming to terms with a life-time's worth of painful memories.

"Oh, you know. They tried to kill me, I faught back."

"Why would they want to kill you?"

Gohan closed his mouth. This was edgy territory, a place he could slip up and mention something that might give away something. At least give away something that might make Sunow suspisious enough to press further. He had caught on to Gohan's occational reference to Earth, hadn't he? And he was a detective of sorts; it was his job to catch things people said. And what about the dragonballs? Garlic and Freeza had been after those wish-granting spheres and he had stood in the way, making them an indirect reason for his enemies to want to kill him. And he would not, _could_ not bring the dragonballs into this mess as well.

"Okay, fair enough, if that's too personal of a question," Sunow allowed. The perplexion on the boy's face had drawn his skin tight along his forehead. Downcast eyes, pursed lips........that area was off limits for discussion, it seemed. "May I ask how long you've known them?"

A brief pause of consideration followed, eventually the boy answered, "I first me Garlic when I was four. Freeza when I was five. I just met Bojack last year."

"That long ago? You were so young -- you _are_ so young. My goodness. One more question then I promise I'll stop," Sunow said, letting the fact that a little boy like this had faced death more times than he had. Gohan tensed in anticipation of the next question, "May I ask why you're working with them? I mean.....I don't think I could work well with people out to kill me."

"I wouldn't have expected it, either," the boy said, "Until just these past couple of days, I would have considered them all dead."

Sunow waited for the boy to continue, but the answer never came forth. The boy only emptied his mug and stared into it's empty interior in thought. Then the his face suddenly contorted. A deep rumbling sound filled the miniature kitchen and Gohan bent over at the waist wrapping his arms around his stomach, resting his forehead on the table. He moaned.

Alarmed and concerned, Sunow asked, "What's wrong?!"

The boy moaned again, "I haven't eaten all day yesterday or this morning."

"How often does your species normally eat?" The Aeesu-jin--totally ignorant about food intake--asked. Couldn't one die if they didn't eat enough? It was a strange concept to one who's never consumed anything besides liquids.

"Around three of four times a day," the boy paused to allow his stomach to emite another frightening sound, "I thought that maybe drinking something would help, and it did for a while, but.....well, now it's back with a vengance."

"I suppose we should get you something to eat, then." The Aeesu-jin said, pushing back his chair and rising, "You know, you really should mention these things before hand. I could have gotten you food last night."

The boy looked at him, "I was too busy to realize I was hungry, I guess. I was more cold and tired last night."

Clearing the used cups off the counter, Sunow rinsed them off and put them away in a cabinet in the far wall. Drying his hands off with a towel, he said, "I understand perfectly. One moment and we'll go get some nurishment for that body of yours. I have to get Forester and Eesei up to go to their lessons, and I have to call ahead to schedual my meeting with Backlash. Departure time in half an hour, go get ready."

"Right," the boy said and left the small kitchen, dragging the blanket on his shoulders behind him like a pretend cape.

Making his way through the livingroom, which looked like a war zone with all the blankets tossed around and two 'dead' bodies laying lifelessly about, he meandered down the hall way to the bathroom. The door opened before him and swished closed behind him, cealing him in. The bathroom was as empty as it was last night, a fact that surprised him more than it really should have.

Resisting the urge to strip down and take another long, warm bath, he made his way to the mirror to check his appearance, dropping his blanket on the floor as he went. He didn't look half bad. The bags under his eyes were gone--thanks to blessed sleep-- and he looked pretty much refreshed. He was surprised to see his hunger wasn't evident; from the way he felt, he thought his ribs would be sticking out through a thin layer of skin. He would have sworn his skull would be visible through his face, cheeks hanging loosely on his jowels, cheekbones sharp, eyes sunken into their sockets. His hands should have been shrunken to mere claws, hardly anything more than bones and a minimal amount of muscle to move them.

None of these features were visible. His eyes were bright, his face was perfectly fleshed out, his ribs as padded by thick, sinous muscle, his hands stong and durable. Nearly horrified that he would feel this bad by going a mere day without food, he wondered what sort of shape he would be in if he went two days. Any longer and he was sure he'd be dead. He felt a new-found respect for peope in third-world countries that only ate once a week.

_Getting off task again._

The only thing wrong with his appearance was his hair. It had looked bad last night, but now--two days without mantainance--it had no rhyme or reason to it at all. It seemed to have gotten spikier overnight, the stiff strands shooting off in every direction in a blatant disregard for gravity and its laws. Running a hand through it, he was surprised to find there were no snarls, his fingers traveled through the raven black strands as though it were liquid coal. It was just spiky.

_That must be how Saiya-jins can go years without brushing their hair._

Nevertheless, he ran his fingers through his hair a few more times, giving it a vague idea of which direction to go to perhaps _attempt_ the usual orderliness he preferred. He wanted to look presentable when he met the doctor again--he was pretty sure he didn't look so the first time.

As an afterthought, he ran a quick splash of water out of the bathtub faucet and ran it over his face, then went on to wash his hands and arms to the elbow. It was nice to have access to warm water on this kami-forsaken ice-ball of a planet.

How much more time did he have left? Deciding to risk it, he sat on the edge of the tub and removed his boots, rolling his pantlegs up to his knees. Turning the red knob, steaming hot water came gushing out on his now exposed toes. On this alien, hostile planet, there couldn't be many things better than this. Hot water on his cold feet, the steam wisping up his legs, the smell of heat was more than enough to make him smile. He took his time, massaging the arch of each foot under the hot water to not only clean them but to help him relax. Now _this_ was a stress-relief therapy he could get used to.

Almost reluctantly, he turned the water off and walked on tip-toes across the cold tile floor to dry each foot off with the blanket he had abandoned on entering. Once satisfied that he wasn't getting any drier, he pulled his boots back on and--checking his appearance once more in the mirror--made his way back to the living room.

Sunow, Forester and Eesei were waiting for him by the door. Bojack must have gotten up after he went into the bathroom, as the blue giant was now sprawling quite comfortably on the couch, feet up on the cusions and a cup of the hot coffee Sunow served held in one of his massive hands. Gohan wondered if he ever sat properly, or even knew how. The boy chose to ignore his presence in the room completely.

It took Gohan a moment of looking to notice that the two children wore sashes across their chests, Forester's a deep hunter-green and Eesei's a sunny yellow. Each sash was trimmed with light blue and had writing on them in a language the boy could not recognize. Aeesu-go, no doubt.

Tapping Eesei's sash, he asked, "What's this?"

"We have to wear them at our lessons, they tell out school and our grade," Forester said, his voice sounded less irritated than it had last night.

_Like Aeesu-jin school uniforms,_ the boy thought.

"Kids are _supposed _to wear them whenever they go out," Sunow explained, elbowing Forester in a silent hint, "But most don't."

"That's because their embarassing!" the Aeesu-jin boy said, wrapping both his fists around the sash he loathed, "Look at this thing, it's hidious."

Gohan smiled, bemused. Nice to know other planet's kids hated wearing uniforms, too. So strange how similarities like that could be found universe wide.

Any potential conversation was cut short by a particuarly raucous howl emited unintentionally by Gohan's stomach.

"Looks like it's time to go," Sunow said, trying not to stare at the boy's abdomen. It was fascinating to think an internal organ could make such a remakable sound. Organisms that ate solids sure were quirky. The adult Aeesu-jin turned his attention to the relaxed form of Bojack, "We're leaving now, tell the others that we're gone."

The Biraju-jin lifted his cup in acknowledgement and nodded his head.

Sunow sighed at such indifference as he, his two children and Gohan left the apartment.

****

Gohan, now rested up and not half way gone into lunacy from lack of sleep, still found the other Aeesu-jin that wandered the halls incredible to look at. Perhaps an Aeesu-jin would think the same about planet Earth and the vast variety of different human characteristics; none the less, to this particular Saiya-jin/human boy, _this_ was unusual.

Carefully staying within five feet from Sunow and his brood at all times to avoid risk of getting lost in this swamped, over-trafficed, series of well lit catecombs, he tried to figure out how to navigate through them. He looked at walls, cealings, floors, hoping to find a number, a word--in _any_ language!--_something!_ There was nothing to be seen, however.

He thought of another method--doubtful that it was the Aeesu-jin way, but still a worthy possibility--in which to navigate. If these underground tunnels were anything like streets were, then there might be hope. Three dimentional streets. After all, if one were to travel three blocks north, then four blocks west, they would reach the same destination as they would if they traveled four blocks west first, then three blocks south. If that were the case, all Gohan would have to do is count the number of times he went left, right, up or down, then flip them backwards to get home. If he turns six times to the left, five times to the right, and two times down, then, surely, to get back to where he started from, all he would have to do is go back six times to the right, five times to the left, and two times up. Hopefully.

Still, it must work better than trying to remember left, right, right, left, up, left, right............

The boy started counting his turns even as he soaked in the different looking Aeesu-jin. The two tasks seemed to eat up time faster than it would have gone if he were wandering aimlessly behind Sunow.

Six turns to the left and four turns to the right later, the group of four stopped infront of a broad, heavy looking door. Above it was writen the words 'Grades 1-12' and below that was written the strange dialect Gohan recognized from Forester and Eesei's sashes. This must be where they go for their lessons.

"Bye, Papa," Forester said as the door swished open to admit him and his sister, "We'll come straight home after class."

"Bye bye, Papa!" Little Eesei peeped, waving energetically to him as she ran through, "I'll paint you an' Gohan a pretty picture!"

Gohan and Sunow waved as the doors closed between them and the school kids, cealing them from sight.

"Now, Son Gohan," Suno said with conviction, "Time for you to eat."

The boy sighed with relief as his stomach murmured in anticipation; he turned and allowed the Aeesu-jin to lead him down the hall.

With his new attempt at navigation, he figured that they were back tracking, running partly over the coarse they had already adventured. When they had reduced their distance until--by Gohan's figuring--three turns to the left and one turn to the right away from where Sunow's home was located, they turned off in a different directin. The boy had to add an extra level to his figuring when the two of them came to what looked like an elevator shaft with no elevator in it and started to fly upward. He started counting floors. Five floors up they emerged from the horizontal shaft and continued their track.

Something seemed different. It was strange. Nothing had really changed, it was still freezing, too bright, crowded with intimidating Aeesu-jin that took the time off from whatever their destination to glare at him, but for some reason Gohan didn't feel as......uncomfortable. Perhaps it was because he had come up with a semblance of knowing where he was. Though he still had no way of knowing how to accually get out of this underground, frozen hell, he still had--hopefully--a way to get back to Sunow's apartment. Perhaps it was because he had already met two Aeesu-jin he felt he could trust. Perhaps it was because he had gotten a reasonably good night's sleep.

Either way, he walked with more confidence. Something had changed, and it was for the better. He could only hope it wasn't the calm before the storm.

Eight lefts, six rights. Ten. Twenty. How far were they going?! Gohan was begining to wonder if Sunow was lost, until the moment the Aeesu-jin said the words he had been longing for.

"We're here."

Looking up at where they had stopped, the door was emens; thick and heavy. Unlike most doors, this one looked dirty, greasy, very out of place in what Gohan had percieved as an immaculate civilization. A closer look proved that, indeed, various foods _had_ been ground into the door and its surroundings. Some was sticky, some crusty, some very old, most unidentifiable.

Sunow reached a tentative hand up to the door-open button. Even this was covered in various grody substances, but here the shape was more that of finger and hand prints than mindless smearing. The Aeesu-jin forced himself to push the button, immidiatly wiping his hand on his hip afterward.

The door gave out a grinding sound, and instead of quietly swishing out of the way like all the other doors the boy had encountered, this one slowly, squeakily, started to move aside. It seemed to take forever, and the hunger-driven Saiya-jin side of the boy nearly tore the door out of its frame to get inside at the food. The Earthling half, however, was trying to get him to go the opposite direction. The shape the door was in, the smeared food, the crusty, rotten looking layer......

_Oh, kami. What if what Freeza said about Aeesu-sei food is true?!_

When a big enough crack appeared between the door and the wall, the boy swore he could _see_ the air inside seeping out, like a clawing, dying animal making an run for a second chance on life. The air was grayish, smokey, gritty looking. But, oh kami, sight is nothing compared to smell.

Gohan had never spent a week in a small locker with six rotting, festering bodies of various rodents, but he swore that whatever was on the other side of that door must be its equivilent. The smell forced its way out as the door finished opening, assaulting his nose, tearing its way into his lungs and traveling south to hassle his empty stomach.

Sunow gagged and covered his mouth. Gohan lurched over as his stomach tried to empty its non-existant contents on the tile floor. He tasted the remains of the coffee he'd had that morning welling up on the back of his tounge taking four steps backward, bending over at the waste. It was the odor of rancid meat. Rotten food. The smell of death.

"Oh, kami," the boy moaned through his hand, trying to swallow the bile that was forcing its way upward, "I can't eat in _there!_"

After a moment of no one entrering through it, the door decided it had been opened long enough and made its grinding, chugging way closed again, blessedly cutting off the assault of tainted-meat smell that befell the two unfortunate people.

"You aren't going to eat in _there,_" Sunow said, wincing in mere memory of the horrible stench, "This is only the main enterance to the dining hall. That horrible smell was coming from the mess hall where all the slaves eat. No sane man with half a mind would eat there unless he were on the verge of death by starvation--and even then there are hundreds of cases a year where a slave rathers to die than eat what they serve."

Finally regaining control of his gag reflex, Gohan managed to ask, "What _do_ they serve there?"

"Whatever you smelled. I don't want to guess. Are you still even hungry?"

"Yes," the boy answered without hesitation, "But I think my stomach shrank and twisted in agony. It's like a perversed version--a sick mockery--of food. Oh, kami, do they really feed living, breathing beings stuff like that?"

For this, Sunow had no answer.

"So we have to go in to get food?" Gohan asked finally.

"Sorry to say, yes. But you don't have to eat and smell that.......terrible.......stench. Just inside this door there is a hall that branches off from the main room. Through it is were beings eat when their masters are willing to pay for more appropriate edibles."

"Right. Let's go," the boy said, trying to steel his senses against the assult he knew he would have to endure. Eyes on the prize, he reminded himself, think of all the good foods Mom makes.

_Warm chicken dumplings in rice, served with candied yams._

Sunow hit the door-open again, and the enterance chugged open. The foul air burst forth. With a force of will power, the boy forced himself through. Sunow followed.

_Hot tomatoe soup with shart cheddar cheese and cranberry muffins._

Inside, the air was thick and smoggy. Only allowing himself a quick look around, the boy could make out large, alien forms sitting at dirty round table, plates filled with unknown substances before them. Thank every kami in the known universe he couldn't make out what was on those plates through the smoke. Some of the aliens were puffing at foul smelling cigars and foreign looking cigarettes, the glowing ember at the end of each was probably the only light in the room except for the soft red lighting that creeped in from unknown sources. At the back of the room, Gohan could barely make out a line of people that led up to a bar. Accually waiting in line for the horrible grotesqueness, here called food. Oh, kami the smell.

_Macaroni and cheese with peas and steamed broccoli and cheese cake for dessert._

He felt Sunow grab his arm and begin to lead him off to the side. Overwhelmed by the horrible odor, he could only allow himself to half-dragged across the room, all the while cursing his keen Saiya-jin sense of smell in all the ways he knew of. Something about the smell was familiar. It was a tinny, rusty smell; for some reason it felt like he knew it. It didn't take long to dawn on him. Blood. Kami, he smelled blood. Drying blood, dripping blood, old blood, new blood. It was all here, all so familiar. He remembered smelling blood before. Many, many times. His blood, his father's blood, Piccolo-san's, Vegita's. All those horrible smells gathered together in a far more primal place than memories.

Mostly, he couldn't stop remembering the smell of his own blood. Everywhere. On him, on the ground below him, on his opponent--who at the moment was an abstract combination of all things evil his subconscions collectively percieved as 'the bad guy'-- his blood flying through the air above him, splattering back on his face. Oh, kami. He was going to bleed to death! How could one loose this much blood and still live?!

_Warm apple pie, pot roast, scalloped potatoes, spicey chicken with bean curd._

Next he knew, he was no longer in that dark, dingy room. It was light, like all the other hallways and rooms he had been in while traveling the populated areas of Aeesu-sei. The smell was no longer waifting about him, no longer arousing memories of the subconscious, no longer making him feel like he were dying. He had made him. He and Sunow had made it. And, even after the horrible expiriance he had just endured, he still found himself hungry. More than hungry.

Ravenous.

"Hard part's over," Sunow said beside him, sighing in relief. He hadn't missed the way the boy's eyes hazed over half-way across the room, hadn't missed the sudden look of panic and fear, as though he were looking helplessly into the face of death . But, the Aeesu-jin realized, that was all just another little mystery of the boy named Son Gohan--a boy whose mysteries and memories would probably never be entirely revealed to him, or anyone else. Through and through, this kid was on in a million. "Now all we have to do is find a table."

**To be continued........**

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	10. CM10

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 10**

Finding a table was far easier than most of the other tasks Gohan had endured that day and the one before. The eatery was a simple seat-yourself type of number with a built in buffet and more than enough tables for the limited amount of people in the room. Sunow and Gohan found a simple but clean table close to the eatery and before the Aeesu-jin had a chance to even sit down the boy had been whisked away by the sweet smells of food.

Carrying a plate, over-productive salival glands, and a stomach that was indeed bigger than his eyes, Son Gohan had all but forgotten the rancid smelling mess hall. This was heaven. Here, he was happy. Here, he belonged. He stabbed a strange looking but good smelling type of food that resembled a crepe. Making his way around each table, he filled his plate with a beautiful smelling first coarse and, snitching food off his own plate as he went, made his way back to the table.

Sunow's eyes widened as he saw the heaping amount the boy had. Son Gohan certainly didn't look like his stomach could anatomically expand to fit it all down, but these solid-eating, warm-blooded off-planet aliens were always a surprise. And this kid seemed to be in the forefront of this view. What a weird kid.

The boy ate what lay before him as quickly as politeness would allow. Even in his starving state, he managed to chew his food, not slurp his noodles, and not wipe his mouth with his hands. It was amazing for Sunow to watch, as not a single speck of food escaped the boy's fork, not a drop of melted butter to a crumb of a muffin. Every molecule of fodder made it's way safely and efficiently to the boy's mouth. Astounding.

"Son Gohan," the Aeesu-jin said, waiting for the boy to finish swallowing before speaking -- he didn't think he'd otherwise be heard over the crunching and munching. "What do you know about your three friends criminal record?"

The boy blanched. Calling Freeza, Bojack and Garlic 'friends' was like a contradiction in terms. "What do you mean?"

"Do they behave as criminals? Do they deviate from acceptable behavior, or break social sanctions of any sort?"

Gohan paused to ingest a few bites of some off-green vegetables, chewed thoroughly, swallowed, and said, "In my planet's normal terms, they've probably broken just about every law written. But I admit that I don't know about Aeesu laws. May I ask, is murdering illegal here?"

Sunow's eyes widened, "Indeed it is! We can't have peace if one Aeesu-jin is out killing another."

"What about people that aren't Aeesu-jin?" the boy asked quietly, "Is it illegal to kill one of your slaves?"

Sunow was quiet.

"If an Aeesu-jin killed me," Son Gohan went on, "Would it be breaking the rules?"

"No." It was all the Aeesu-jin could say. He knew he would think it a crime to kill a boy like Son Gohan. But what about anyone else? You can't base murder on a person's character. It was true that slaves were worked, beaten, starved to death everyday. They weren't all adults, either. Children, like Son Gohan. In this perspective, Sunow suddenly felt extreme shame for his people's behavior--a feeling he was not accustomed to and he drastically did not like.

"Then I don't think any of them are criminals in that sense. I know they've killed many other kinds of aliens. Destroyed whole planets. But as for crimes against Aeesu-jins....well, I don't think so."

"But they are violent? Dangerious?"

"Yes."

"Would they kill an Aeesu-jin if they were in a situation that such an act might be a solution?"

"Probably," the boy tilted his head back slightly as though he were trying to get a different perspective of Sunow, studied him, inspected him. "Why are you asking all this?"

The Aeesu-jin let a stream of air out of his lungs. "I've been put on a very pricy case. If I tell you about it, you must swear to die with it in your heart, never having uttered it to anyone."

Gohan leaned forward across the table, pushing his plate out of the way and curling his tail around a chair leg in anticipation, "I swear."

The conviction in the boy's eyes was encouraging. Sunow leaned forward to meet the boy, closing the distance between their foreheads to half a foot.

"There has been a series of.....brutal....murders lately. Extremely violent. We have no leads, no suspects, no clues. We're entirely stumped."

Gohan nodded his head, eyes urging the Aeesu-jin to continue.

"What makes this case even worse is that all of the victims were extremely high in the social ladder, government officials, the big dogs. Were not talking the local weaklings, here. Prestige is only half of power, and these men could easily take nearly anything thrown at them."

"So, like any good on-planet, you've decided to suspect an off-planet. And since I assume we're some of the only off-planets around, you naturally look to us as the most likely murderers. And with large, strong-looking people like Bojack, it makes it easier to peg the blame on us."

Sunow's tounge danced around behind his teeth like a bird, but he could not catch hold of it.

"I don't really blame you. I don't doubt that if they were hired to, they'd kill those Aeesu-jin just as surely as the real killer did."

"You don't think they did it?" Sunow managed to conjecture.

"They couldn't have. They've been with me since we arrived on this planet the night before last. None of them have been out of my sight until just now when we left. It's impossible."

"When did you hook up with them? Not long before arriving here, I assume. They could have been on the planet before they joined forces with you and commited those haneous acts. In fact, it would fit. No murders were reported all day yesterday. Isn't that at least a little suspicious?"

Gohan put his elbows on the table and supported his chin on his palms. How could he possibly explain to Sunow that Freeza, Bojack and Garlic were all from six hundred years in the future, and before that, had been dead? The boy was having a hard time not spilling everything and letting the whole truth about their mission spill across the table.

"Sunow-san, we have reason to believe this planet will be targeted and destroyed sometime very soon. I can't tell you how, or when, but the whole reason we are here is to put a stop to it before it happens."

Sunow looked down at the table. Either his kid was telling the genuine truth in all it's glory, or he was the single more talented lier this side of the galaxy had ever seen. When the Aeesu-jin looked up again, he saw that the boy had returned to the buffet to refill his plate, his tail lashing behind him in expression of some strong emotion Sunow could not read.

When he returned the second time, the matter was left dead for better digestion.

* * *

To Joru Le'armont, planet Aeesu was a stinking death pit.

Standing at one of the only uppermost windows of the generally underground Aeesu-jin civilization in one of the only levels that could make a normal alien comfortable, he did not really notice the beauty of the purple and pink sun rise. He was colorblind like all the other species of his race, but even if he did see the radiant neon colors, swirling about on a cosmic canvas, it would have meant nothing to him.

The Tahch-jin saw beauty with their hands.

They saw everything with their hands, used their unique sense of feel to enjoy all the pleasures of sight, smell, hearing and taste through the textures and varieties of the objects that met their palms. They possessed all these senses as well, but such were only used for their primary function.

Joru only used his amber eyes to see. Only used his pointed ears to hear. Only used his abrupt, slightly pugged nose to smell. His forked tongue only informed him if food was too salty, or too sweet. But no such functions were used for pleasure. The Tahch-jin took their pleasures from touch alone.

Joru looked at his hands, at the short, white hair that grew along the backs of them, at the inky-black nails that lined them, polished to look like gleaming drops of black oil. Turning his hands over as though they were priceless instruments, he scrutinized his soft, velvety palms. The thinner, inner fur gleamed with vibrancy; the pale, white skin underneath barely showed through. Satisfied they were clean, he looked over his shoulder.

On a table on the other side of the room, a small rock sat. There looked like nothing out of ordinary about it. A simple piece of stone, a dirt clod that could have been tracked in from nowhere and was just waiting to be swept up and put in a garbage bin. And to any of the Aeesu-jin's on the planet, or to Gohan, far, far below totally unaware of Joru's existence, or to just about any other living thing in the universe it was nothing more than just that.

But they were not Tahch-jin.

Joru and his brother had found the stone drifting about in space on the far side of the West Galaxy. It could have been a mere chunk of an asteroid. Smashed free from its big brother from an impact, perhaps. It didn't really matter. Joru had wanted to experience it himself, to feel the memories that lingered on every existing thing, see its travels. So they collected it.

But it wasn't just a sliver of rock knocked free from a comet. Wasn't just your average rock. It had once been a small part of a proud planet. And the memories that lay dormant in that rock spoke of such vitality and beauty that its eventual fate tore at Joru's soul. That planet, once magnificent and proud, had been destroyed, blown into dust and floating debris set to drift forever, forgotten. Even worse, it had been destroyed intentionally.

Joru wrapped his soft, white hands around the small stone, feeling its texture, waiting for the more intense feelings to come. It never took long. The pain. The rock felt the pain of its planet, of its inhabitants. The rocks majesty had been torn apart and mutilated, reducing it to the mere pebble that lay on the soft cushion of the Tahch-jin's palm.

It had been the Aeesu-jin. They were the destroyers. Why they did it didn't matter. Didn't they realize what they were doing? Didn't they feel the pain they had sewn into every molecules of that planet? Kami, of coarse not. Such clairvoyance was privy to only advanced civilizations.

_And now, Aeesu-jin, it's time to reap what you have sown._

He set the stone down and quickly washed his hands. They had to be clean.

"Still practicing your fanatic hygiene routines?"

Joru didn't even bother turning around. He knew his brother would be standing there, leaning in the door way or against some wall. How he got into Joru's private room was irrevolent when it came to Henning Le'armont. It was just something he did. Joru washed his hands, Henning appeared out of no where. Twins were strange that way.

Drying his hands on a cloth he was positive to be sanitary, he allowed himself to face his sibling. It was so odd how alike they looked. Indeed, they were not identical, but the similarities was shocking. Both stood at a height of a good six feet, a shock of aqua blue hair running down the center of their heads from the top of their forehead to the nape of their neck. A gentle white fur ran the coarse of their bodies, stopping only on their lips, around their eyes and -- if their boots were removed to see -- the bottoms of their feet. The skin around their eyes was a bluish color, ending in stark contrast to the pearly whites of their eyes.

"How many?" Joru asked.

"Fifteen from yesterday. We're looking for the next target. We have yet to find Heng."

"What are you doing about the bodies?"

Henning pealed back his lips to reveal rows of snow-white, flat teeth. Perfect teeth. "What does one do with corpses? Do you want us to bring them here?"

"Kami, no!" Joru said indignantly. He would have to wash his hands again, "But are you just leaving them where they're slain to be found?"

Henning leaned his head back against the wall in absolute indifference, "That's the trend."

"Honestly, brother. You're as bad as they are. I'm horrified that we're related."

"Like wise. But you need me here. Why else would you have asked me for help?"

Joru had no answer.

"It's because you don't want to get your perfect hands dirty. You don't want any blood there, because you can never wash blood away. Ever. Have you ever killed someone, brother? Ever felt the memories of blood on your palm? No? You've never lived. You've never truely lived. C'mon, you and me. Let's blow this little mud ball up here and now. Then we'll collect a few more rocks and fly off, nothing lost."

"Just stick to the plan. This is my situation, please, please, just follow what I say. This planet will go soon enough."

Henning was gone. It was like that with him. Entering from some unknown place and vanishing like smoke when there was nothing more to say.

Joru Le'armont washed his hands again, making sure they stayed white and clean.

* * *

The way out was just as bad as the way in. The smell of the putrid deathtrap of a mess hall tried to tear its way into Son Gohan's intestines and forcefully steal his freshly eaten food from him. Somehow, however, he managed, though by the time he had made it through the food-encrusted exit, every hair on his tail was standing on end and it took quite a bit of smoothing and rubbing to get them to go back down. His tail fur had never stood on end before, it was weird. Why, he wondered, did it do that, anyway?

Either way, soon, both Sunow and he were once again traveling down the well light hallways, and things seemed to be working out right. In his genial mood -- caught up on sleep, metabolism beginning to adapt, and a fresh meal in his stomach -- Gohan was even considering mentioning Bojack's eating needs as well.

The halls were empty in this section, leaving the Aeesu-jin and the Saiya-jin the kind of quiet that really induces thinking. And as he thought, the boy continued to keep track of the turns he took. Three more rights, two more lefts......

And suddenly, everything seemed wrong. No questioning it, the very air around them screamed of discontent. Something horrible was here. Both of them slowed down, exchanged glances, and advanced slower. Gohan caught the smell first. Not much farther down the hall, the first visual signs were seen. Red. Or what was once red, hung on all the walls. Blood. Dried, crispy, darkened from exposure to air. It was heartily splattered.

Farther down the hall, they found the body. It was an Aeesu-jin, or was. The remains were brutally abused, torn, beaten, the head reduced nearly to jelly. All around it were smudgings of red, grasping hand prints that marked the victim's last movements. In the battered remains of the rib cage, a blood-stained emerald green sash could be made out.

Sunow approached the body and leaned over it, trying to get a better look at the sash to try to identify the it, as the face was too badly damaged to recognize.

"Duke Furaz. Kami. He's linked tightly to Backlash, and they wanted me to find the killer before Furaz became a target. Guess I was too late. Kaldu is going to eat me alive for this," Sunow said, a quiet fear for his life welling up from deep inside. They might even blame him. He could be killed for this. And there was nothing he could do about it. What about his children?

At the thought of children, Sunow suddenly realized Son Gohan's presence. Finding the body had disoriented him. Kami, a little boy isn't supposed to see dead things! It could hurt their tender minds! Darting his head so fast it cracked his neck, he looked at the boy with a strange sense of parental concern tickling its way around between his lungs.

Son Gohan's face was pale, and hundreds of things seemd to flash before his eyes as a speed that baffled Sunow's mind. Fear, oh kami of coarse there would be fear. Horror, disgust, revilement. All those Sunow could understand seeing, and all of those were evident. But so was a strange looking shadow that seemed to transform the teen's body into two split images, both living in the same body. One, a tiny little boy, younger than what his years should be able to show. The other, an old, withered veteran, trying to live his life as though he had never faught in a war; his medals of honor stashed away up in the attic if they weren't burried in the back yard to be worm food. Surprisingly, this cloud also transformed the boy's normally enthusiastic, but polite voice to that of one hollow and indifferent.

"Such brutality."

Sunow could only agree as he rushed off to call the coroner and someone to remove the body.

****

Once the professionals arrived, the body was cealed away in a black body bag and removed for study. What must have been twenty men were given the unpleasant task of cleaning the extensive mess while Sunow and Gohan were questioned, analized, recorded, and thoroughly intimidated, and, three hours later, released.

They walked down the hall way in a different kind of silence. This silence also was one that could make one think, but the only thoughts are those of questions that had no answer. It just wasn't fair that violence had to exist.

Though Gohan hadn't been keeping track of the time, he still managed to number off the turns he took; all the while making a mental note about where the body had been found. Kami, no matter how many times he'd seen dead people, it still affected him, lingered with him. He really was weak.

Sunow gestured between Gohan and a door to his sudden left. He had been so caught up in thinking and counting and mentally slamming himself, he had forgotten that he was even going somewhere.

"This is Dr. Koda's personal office," the Aeesu-jin said, his voice drifty. Gohan didn't know if the drifty sound was his own ears in shock or Sunow just not paying attention to his tone. It didn't really matter. Right now, he just needed something to make him forget what he had just seen, and a good talk with the good doctor in a good office was just the ticket.

The boy nodded, "Are you going in with me?"

"Yes," Sunow still sounded drifty, "My meeting with Backlash is in an hour. Kami, I think they might kill me for this."

Gohan wanted to swear to the Aeesu-jin that he would protect him. That he would chase away all those fears, and foes and evil little sneakers that crawled in the back of even the basest of minds. But the boy didn't have the energy. The bashed in corpse had eaten away his enthusiasm, leaving him a dry, weary feeling inside. He didn't have the passion or conviction to convince another that everything was going to be all right, because inside he was having a hard enough time convincing himself.

Either way, he swore to himself that he would try his best to protect Sunow and his family, and that's where the truth in a swear really counts, anyway.

The office was freezing, and Gohan was not surprised. It seemed the more important the establishment, the colder it was inside. It was annoying, but Gohan was glad that the cold momentarily whisked away his thoughts about the body. The receptionist behind the desk looked up, eyeing Sunow first then the boy.

"Son Gohan?" He asked.

"Yeah," the boy said.

"You're early, but the doctor is free. Go on back. May I help you, sir?"

"Oh, no," Sunow said, taking a seat on a bench, "I'm with Son Gohan. I'll wait for him."

"Very well, then," the receptionist said, "Go on back, young man. Third door on the back wall."

"Thank you," the boy said absent-mindedly, and followed the quick directions to the back of the room, located the door he wanted, and entered when it opened for him.

Inside, it was hardly different than the doctor's office he had been in to get his check-up. The sink was on the other side of the room and the table of tools was empty; other than that, the rooms were identical. The examining table in the center of the room was more of a chair, built so it could recline or straighten at the doctor's order, the white tiles that lined the cealing, walls, floor and every cuticle inbetween. And oh, the smell of anesthetic and disinfectant. How could anyone forget that.

At one of the tables, the doctor was leaning over a microscope. He seemed unaware of the boy's presence, even though Gohan was sure the door made its usual _swish_ sound, and in the quiet room it must have been audible. It didn't matter. That reasoning seemed to be working for the boy more and more. It didn't matter. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. Kami, couldn't he be paranoid instead of indifferent? He was sure that some time soon he would rush head first into the person/persons who were going to destroy this planet and totally forget about it, because he was too busy applying his new logic. _It didn't matter, it didn't matter, it didn't matter._

He crossed the room, his feet padding silently on the tile floor and his tail lazily curling and uncurling behind him. He leaned over the doctor, trying to see what was so holding his interest. He couldn't make it out, the doctor's considerable posterior blocked any view of what he was observing.

"What are you looking at?" Gohan asked curiosly, leaning over the table to try to see what the doctor had under the microscope.

"Oh, Son Gohan!" The doctor said, startled, "I didn't hear you come in! Welcome, my boy."

The boy smiled, somewhat taken back by the doctor's behavior. It seemed more open, downright friendly. Sure, couldn't an Aeesu-jin be a friend? Oh, good. His paranoia had returned.

"This is amazing," the doctor said, shiffling through a few disks of thin, fine glass, "Come look here. Hold on a second now.....here. This sample you see under the microscope is a perfect example of an average DNA pattern. See all the little globs of mishapen red blood cells? I'm sure you know it's from the average amount of blood clotting, scarring, growing, healing, cell reproduction and what-not one does through their life."

The boy looked in at the sample. Yes, that was indeed what he'd seen in all the blood cells he had studied--and he had studied more types of blood than probably any scientist, though it had taken nearly an hour to convince Piccolo to allow his blood to be studied and Bulma had to make Vegita give up his. It had proven long worth the effort, however, as Gohan had descovered yet another field that fascinated him. DNA, RNA, blood samples, white, red, sickle, genetics, lineage, it was all an extremely interesting field and with a great mentor like Bulma and full support from his mother, he went all out in persute of it.

Now, here it was, paying off as he applied it in a situation he had never considered. Odd how life works, he was discussing science with an alien seven hundred years in the past and he hadn't even formed and published his first thesis yet.

"Yes," he said, twisting the focus knob to see the cells better, "Little abnormalities like that can be found in the blood of anything that has blood in it. I don't think there's a person that exists that had never had their skin broken before."

"As we were taught," the doctor said, nodding. He slid a different film under the microscope, "Now take a look at this one."

The boy took a long time studying the second sample, adjusting and re-adjusting the focus, squinting, bending over to hold his eye close to the eye-piece, then pausing to pull back as though somehow the distance from the lense would affect his view point. He paused his study to yawn and stretch his back, standing on his toes, reaching his hands as high above his head as they could go and arching his tail. He rubbed his jaw, then returned to look again.

And still, the only words he could manage to say were, "It's perfect."

"Funny you should choose those words," the doctor said, leaning over to look at the sample again himself, "Because that's the exact same thing I said when I first saw it, and it's still the only thing I can say about it now. Did you notice how there is no irregularities? No split cells that had clotted, no bits of dead cells? This sample is as clean as a new born infants if not cleaner. It must have come from a person who's never had their skin broken in their entire life."

"Who _did_ this sample come from?" the boy asked, his forehead wrinkled with thought, his tail squirming behind him in near knots as though it were an animated towel trying to wring itself out.

"This perfect sample came from you, Son Gohan. That's why I called you here."

The boy's body stiffened, his reply was a small exhalation as he attempted to speak but nothing came out, and even if he was capable of sound, his lips and tounge would have shaken their heads as his commands. He looked at the sample's structure again.

Now that he was looking, it really did look like his DNA pattern, but there was definatly something different about it. All the things the doctor had mentioned, '_the little globs of mishapen red blood cells? I'm sure you know it's from the average amount of blood clotting, scarring, growing, healing, cell reproduction and what-not one does through their life-_' were gone. He hadn't even recognized his own pattern, because the one he knew of was so full of sliced red blood cells, streams of quickly moving blood trying to carry all the healing properties needed to knit bones and reshape cartilage--all ways present, even when he was in no real need of healing. He had always assumed his body was still trying to perfectly fix all the broken bones he had suffered through-out his short life. Since bones never healed properly, he always assumed his body always would created more bone-sealant.

And then it hit him. Kami Larkas had healed him, hadn't he? All of his bones had knit, kami, every last one of his very cells must have been shaped and reformed and healed to their peak capacity in health. It was accually an incredibly interesting predicament, and the boy wanted desperatly to start a sudden and thorough investigation about himself, giving it the entire works from a full-body x-ray to a retina scan and cell-by-cell evaluation.

Oh, but kami, what could he tell the doctor? How could he possibly explain why-

"That's not all," the doctor said, and went across the room to remove two samples from seperate petre dishes. Gohan could not see what the samples were, "Here, look at this one. This skin sample--you remember when I graphted some skin off of you, right?--is from the same person as the first blood sample I showed you. Please take a look."

Feeling slightly dulled, and suddenly wishing he were anywhere else but here, the boy obediantly looked at the first sample of skin.

"See all the hair-thin lines on it?"

Still unable to locate his voice, the boy managed to locate the small, white lines all over the sample, as well as small bits of other dead skin and what might be a mole or scar of some odd sort.

"Natural wear-down of the skin. Gentle scars, if you will. This sample was taken from a sixteen year old Saiya-jin who had voluteered to work for us half a year ago. Scratches like that would have to be evident on anyone whose ever had any expiriances with fighting or sparring or sports of other physical activities."

The boy's tail twisted around his leg as he searched for a suitable explanation--_truth or lie, truth or lie..._

"Now," the doctor said, trading the sample with the other he had retrieved, "Let's take a look at this one."

Gohan knew what he would see before he even looked, but somehow his eyes were at the viewing lense and his fingers were focusing it before he realized what he was doing. It was perfect, this sample.

"As you can see, there are no scratches on this one. One might even think this sample was taken from a new-born baby, however, further analysis would conclude that though the skin is nearly flawless and perfectly new, it is far more durable and resistant to outside forces than the first skin sample."

Gohan's mouth was dry and he felt like he was swallowing grit. _Truth or lie, truth or lie..._

"You are aware that this second sample is also from you, correct?"

The boy nodded and said, "Yes," though his voice cracked, turning it into 'y-_Es.' _

"Do you have some reason your cells are in such perfect shape?" Was the doctor being suspicios or just curious? Everyone on this planet seemed to think he was an odd kid, so why not use that? Why not blame his incredibly physical health on his human half? No one here knew about Earth, or humans, or their biology. It could work.......

"Does your planet have a Kami?" The words came out instead of the lie he was brewing. He damned his truth-telling lips to eternal punishment in hell-fire. Why couldn't he just be allowed to lie for once?! Damn conscience!

"A Kami?" The doctor paused in thought, rubbing at one of his rounded cheeks, "Some say that Heng is this planet's kami, but I know that isn't true."

Gohan widened his eyes, "How do you know that? From what I've heard, no one really knows what Heng is-"

He stopped when he saw a sudden look of shock creep across the doctor's face, a look of dread as though he had just witnessed Death itself come galomping through the doors of his office. He had mentioned that he had connections with Heng, knew what Heng was, or at least wasn't, enough that he might have just endangered his position as a doctor, his respect through-out the community and perhaps his life. Gohan wondered if his face had done that moments earlier when he felt like he had been found out.

"My samples," the boy said, trying to divert the conversation from the doctor's nearly revealed secret, "The reason my samples are so unmarred is because I was healed by a kami."

"Your planet has a kami?" the doctor asked, his eyes still shifty as though he expected the walls of his office to come crashing down and hundreds of murderous Aeesu-jin come swooping in from without to destroy him for speaking of Heng.

"Yes, but the one that healed me was from.....a different planet."

It was true, but for some reason it still felt like a lie. Damn, stupid conscience.......

The doctor must have seen the mental tug-of-war the boy was waging with himself and, shaking his head in confusion, asked, "Son Gohan, why are you on this planet, anyway? You just don't seem like you belong here. You're a free alien, right? Why not just leave and go home to your planet and enjoy your childhood and grow into the scholar you're destined to be?"

Gohan lowered his head. He trusted this doctor, felt like they were on the same side, but what could he say? With a final mental shrug, he decided that since he had told Sunow at least the meatiest part of why he was there, he may as well enlighten this Aeesu-jin as well.

"Would you believe me if I told you we knew this planet, planet Aeesu, was going to be destroyed sometime soon?"

Slipping around the question the doctor asked, "Who is 'we'?"

"The people I'm here with. Bojack, Garlic and Freeza. Would you believe me?"

The doctor sighed, paused to look through the lense of the microscope to examine the sample again and finally said, "I can't disprove what you think. No one knows the future."

_Except those that are from it, _Gohan thought.

"But why are you here?"

"We're here to stop if from being destroyed."

The two looked at eachother for quite a while. Finally, the doctor moved forward and put his large, meaty hands on the boy's slim shoulders. Leading him across the room to the examining chair, the Aeesu-jin said, "Son Gohan, you're leaving plot holes. Sit down and tell me the whole story."

The boy obediantly sat on the chair, but said, "You wouldn't believe it."

"If you've been around as long as I have, you would have an appreciation for the abnormal as acute as mine. I've seen some strange things in my life, so open up and try me."

The boy took a deep breath, collected his thoughts, then went into a cut-up version of his meeting with Kami Larkas. Finding himself on the grassy plain, the echoing waves of sound, then the room of black and meeting up with his three 'companions.' Then on to explain how the Kami had told them about the destruction of the planet and the healing. The only thing he really left out was that it involved time travel. As far as his tale was concerned, Larkas still wanted the planet saved to protect his dimention, but _how_ it would affect it was left vague. Gohan had learned at a young age that playing dumb about things was alot easier than trying to come up lies.

When the tale was done, the two stared at eachother for a while. Somewhere along the line, the boy had drawn his legs up onto the chair he was sitting on, wrapped his arms around it in a subconscious attempt to sooth his aching nerves. For some odd reason, he had a really bad headache, a throbbing, pounding _thmp, thmp, thmp_ right in the center of his forehead. It was probably just undue stress. It was nothing to worry about.

He twined his tail around his ankles and tugged absentmindedly at one of his armbands.

"Son Gohan." At the mention of his name, the boy made tentative eye-contact, "I admit your story is very difficult to swallow-" the boy's face wilted "-but I believe you."

Gohan blinked in surprise, "Huh?"

"And if this really is the truth, it is dire that this threat be reported to Heng. I'll contact him as soon as possible to see if I can get him to see you."

Unable to find anything more to say, the boy said, "Thank you."

**To be continued...........**

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	11. CM11

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 11**

Sunow sat in the doctor's waiting office crossing and uncrossing his legs. He leaned back against the wall behind his bench, then scooted forward to the end of his seat, folding his hands over his knees. He set his tail along one side of him, then the other. Anxious energy. It was a plague. Where the devil was that boy? His meeting with Backlash was in ten minutes, this was important!

While he waited, he worked through what he could say at his meeting. Kami knew it took every brain cell he had to try working out a game plan that would conclude with him still alive. But now that he had it, or at least some cop-out that would stall long enough for him to come up with a more workable excuse for not immediately surfing over every scrap of evidence to show that he had at least _looked_ for the killer. Kami, he didn't even have a single lead!

As embarrassing as it was, the intriguing off-planet visitors had so befuddled him with puzzles and mysteries that he had actually forgotten --_ forgotten --_ all about his assignment. The more he thought of those three -- an off-planet Aeesu-jin whose name couldn't be found in any records, a giant with a conspicuous scar running over his face, a gremlin of total indifference, and, of coarse, Son Gohan -- the more he couldn't help but wonder what the heck it was holding them together! They were hated enemies, for Kami's sake!

A hand landed on his shoulder, startling the Aeesu-jin out of his scrambled thoughts. Looking up, he saw Gohan had finally finished discussing whatever it was Dr. Koda wanted. The boy was beaming.

"All done, then?" Sunow asked, standing up and leaning backward to flex his spine; he had been sitting for nearly an hour. The boy nodded, and, still smiling, turned to head out the door. Waving a quick good-bye to the receptionist to inform him they were leaving, the Aeesu-jin followed.

As the door swished closed behind them, the boy paused to enjoy the warm feeling of the air in the hall. He was surprised when Sunow bustled past him, not stopping to make sure the boy was following. Jogging to catch up, Gohan called after him, "Wait up!"

"Hurry, hurry," the Aeesu-jin said, not stopping or even slowing down as he gestured behind him for the boy to make haste, "I don't want to be late, this is important!"

Slighly bemused, slightly surprised and ever afraid of getting left behind and never finding his way out, Gohan prudently quickened his pace to a jog until he was parallel to Sunow once again.

It wasn't too far. By the time the two of them halted their brisk walk before a rather prominent, high-tech sliding door, Sunow was quite sure he was exactly on time. His hand paused at the 'requested entry' button, hovering inches above it. A sudden tital wave of doubt spread through the marrow of his bones, shocking his spine, setting his teeth on edge. What if Backlash didn't listen? What if they killed him on sight for dissapointing them, then putting the public to rest by telling them _he_ was the killer at large? This whole situation was a mass-hysteria waiting to happen, and someone was going to get pegged whether they were involved or not.

With a large strain of will power, he mashed the button. There was nowhere he could go, he had to hope Backlash would be understanding.

"Sunow," he said into the intercom. There was a beep of acknowledgment on the other side. "Do you wish to come in with me? I might take a while."

The boy opened his mouth to speak when the door _wooshed_ open and a sub-zero arctic blast bombarded him from within, whipping his hair and making him flinch. His breath rolled out in glossy spumes, half his body stung on contact with the impossibly low temperature.

"I think I'll wait out here."

For half a second, Sunow gave a genuine smile; noticing the boy's discomfort didn't take any particular observational skills. Warm blooded creatures really were odd. With a nod of understanding, the Aeesu-jin went through the door.

*

Gohan leaned against the wall beside the door, his arms wrapped around eachother and his tail hanging limply behind him, only the tip raised ever-so-slightly on one side then the other. He felt nervious, though he was pretty sure he had no reason to be. Perhaps it was just concern for Sunow. Maybe he should have gone in incase something happened, whether it was cold or not.

No, it was too cold, even for him. Without any sort of protection agaist the freezing temperature, despite all his power, he would probably end up freezing to death within a few hours. And there was nothing a dead body could do to protect the Aeesu-jin family.

He started pacing, hoping to get warmer. He got a suddenly clear vision of the Kame house. The quaint two story home of the once-hermit Muten Roshi-sama, the red trim, hang-out to all his friends. And yes, the beach. At that one moment in time, Gohan felt he might very well sell his soul for just an hour of laying on that warm sand, under the shining sun; staring up at the blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds.

His shoulder brushed up against a the cold tile wall. There would be none of that, now. He could laze in the sun once this mission was complete, and not a second sooner. He felt even more anxious. What was he accomplishing standing out here in this hallway when the proverbial 'bad guy' was concocting his scheme to blow this planet to smitherenes this very instant?!

In a sudden rush of anxious energy, he marched a purposful ten feet down the hall, realized he had no idea where he was going, turned on his heels, marched back as though the about would solve his problems, stopped before the enterance to Backlash headquarters, turned a full circle in search of something unknown, realized how foolish he must look, and forced himself to lean agaist the cold wall again.

His tail was puffed up again and though his back was to the wall he could swear he felt a cold breath on the back of his neck.

Waiting was haggaring.

*

"We have put an arrest warrant on the four off-planets put in your care."

A sudden shock ran up Sunow's spine, "All of them?"

Things had gone wrong since he had set foor inside. As before, he made his way across the room and seated himself at the blue-lit table where three large, Backlash Aeesu-jin waited for him. As he had feared, they gave him no time to speak, but what they said was totally unexpected.

"Of coarse all of them. Good thing, too, because this homocide case is getting out of control."

"Sir? Why? They couldn't have commited all those murders--"

"It doesn't matter," the large, muscular Aeesu-jin said with a dismissive gesture, "The public wants someone punished, and those four just happened to come along at the right time. We can cover up all the murders that happen afterward until we find the real killer."

"And the off-planets?"

"They'll be executed," a second Aeesu-jin, meatier, bigger and darker-tinted than all the others said. He suddenly narrowed his eyes and leaned over the table that was dwarfed under his size, "Why?"

Sunow couldn't believe what he was hearing. True, he would expect himself to be blamed. Maybe some other likely suspects as well. Freeza, Bojack, yes, would have made suitible fall-outs. But they hadn't _met_ Son Gohan! No way in hell.........they would care. It was a lost cause to argue.

"Are you dissagreeing with us? Do you have any substantial evidence that could disprove us?"

"Well," Sunow frantically thought. Perhaps a lie could help, "Yes. I have....lots of evidence that says their innocent."

The three Aeesu-jin at the table exchanged glances. Finally, the third one--a small, but compact Aeesu-jin with a lilting voice--spoke, "You'll have to get rid of it immidiatly or else the public will stay ansy."

"But they didn't do it."

"And I already said it didn't matter."

"I can't let you prosecute innocent people!"

Sunow suddenly realized how stupid he was being. He hardly had time to realize he was in a room with three large, well trained, ruthless Aeesu-jin before those very three started to rise from their chairs.

"You're saying you'll go against us for the sake of some bastard off-planets?"

"I-" Sunow stumbled on his tounge.

"That makes you a traitor, liable for death right next to your alien friends."

"Wait a minute, I-"

"We've heard enough." The largest Aeesu-jin's voice seemed to rumble the whole table, "You shall take your punishment _now_. Your off-planet friends will be joining you in death shortly."

Sunow leapt out of his chair and ran for the door.

*

Son Gohan raised his hand to the 'requested entry' button for the third time. Despite the past ten minutes of lecturing himself about paranoia, he still couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen--a feeling that was always accompanied by jitteriness and a hard to control chi increase.

Once again he wished he had gone inside with Sunow in the begining. The feeling was suddenly increasing to a desperate need, but -- knowing how these on-planet Aeesu-jin felt about aliens in general -- he didn't want to embarass himself and his Aeesu-jin friend by barging in. Besides that, it would be in total disrespect to the hours and years his mother has spent teaching him social edicate and politeness.

But if something bad did happen.......

Which button was it that Sunow hit anyway? There were several buttons, all of which were labeled in Aeesu dialect -- a language he had no hope of learning in the (hopefully) short time he would be staying on Aeesu-sei. What did the other buttons do?

A sudden chill ran up his spine, setting the hairs on his neck and tail on end. The sudden shock made the decision for him. Forcing care to the wind, he mashed the button that his machanical instincts felt most drawn to.

The door opened.

*

Sunow didn't make it to the door. Of coarse, he wasn't really expecting to. His feet didn't hit the ground twice before he felt a sharp slap against his unprotected back--the familiar sting of an Aeesu-jin's tail burned its way into his senses. Somehow, he managed to stay on his feet, making it three more steps, just six feet from the door, before he felt a sharp, bony knee drive into his shoulder. Escape was looking improbable. He was going down, the three Aeesu-jin, superior to him in every physical aspect, were going down right on top of him.

If he managed to stay on his feet, perhaps he could make it to the door. If he could stay on his feet, he might be lucky enough to fight back and escape. If he could just stay on his feet--

He fell.

_Oh, Kami. I'm going to die........._

*

It took Gohan a second to register what he saw. He expected perhaps a couple of Aeesu-jin all sitting around, talking quietly. He expected them to all look up at him in mild surprise and intense annoyance when the door swished open as he disturbed their meeting. He expected Sunow would rush him back out and tell him to stay in the hall way.

What he _didn't_ expect to see, despite his violent sense of foreboding, was three large, powerfull Aeesu-jin all on top of Sunow--it took the boy a moment longer to recoginze that it even _was_ Sunow under there--pounding away in an obvious attempt to kill him quickly and painfully.

And it took a second more to come to terms with some sort of action.

"What are you doing?!" He shouted, hoping pitifully that if the attacking Aeesu-jin saw a witness, cease their actions and make out the get-away.

The Aeesu-jins at hand were too caught up in their task to take notice of the boy. Unable to find any other suitable resolve in the short time he had, and cursing the fact that he would have to stoop to violence, the boy sprung forward, tackling all three assailants at once and sending them all sprawling off Sunow.

"Who the hell are you?" the medium seized Aeesu-jin asked, looking out the door behind the boy to see if he brought reinforcements. He saw no one. The kid was alone. What sort of idiot attacked three Backlash Aeesu-jin by himself?

"What is this," the small Aeesu-jin with the lilting voice asked, "Has one of the slaves escaped and gone mad?"

"Wait a moment," the large dark one said, "I think this is one of those off-planets!"

"Hah!" the small one said, "Guess he wanted to save us the time it would take looking for him. You ready to die, boy?"

"Gohan, get out of-" Sunow tried to say, but his words were drowned out as the three offensive Aeesu-jin charged into what they percieved as an easy fight. The large, dark Aeesu-jin attacked a hair faster than the other two -- being their senior in speed as well as age and power. His large fist -- nearly the size of Gohan's head -- was already halfway through and arc aimed at the boy's placid face. The small spacing between him and the other two was all Gohan needed.

Swinging his body to the left of the air-born punch, the boy was left a perfect opening for his elbow to catch the gargantuan Aeesu-jin in the center of his ribs. With a sick sense of horror, her felt his opponent's rib cage give in and finally break with a sickening, wet cracking sound. Despite his horror, he rammed more power into his attack, driving the shocked body of the Aeesu-jin backward against his two accomplices.

The three of them were sent sprawling backward, the wounded giant on top, clutching his chest and gasping wetly. His ribs must have punctured his lungs. The two on the bottom pulled themselves out from under their downed comrade and looked at him in surprise and shock.

"Core-san?" the smallest Aeesu-jin inquired, a sudden, uncharacteristic note of concern in his voice. Then, their number reduced to two, they attacked again, "You little bastard!"

Almost feeling guilty over the unfairness of the odds, the boy nevertheless met their attack dead even, slamming his fist against the second largest Aeesu-jin's jaw with such force it came close to dislodging itself. He raised his second fist to deliver a second and probably killing blow.

He only saw a white flash and a whistling _crack_ as the smaller Aeesu-jin's tail snapped at his face with more accuracy and power than any whip could hope for. Gohan jerked his head to the side, avoiding any chance of serious injury, but he hadn't been fast enough. A sharp and sudden sting lashed across his cheek.

Gritting his teeth, the boy ignored the sudden pain, which felt surprisingly akin to a bad burn, and grabbed the Aeesu-jin's tail before it could arc back away from him. Leaning back and using the Aeesu-jin on the other side of the tail as leverage, he tugged hard. The smallest Aeesu-jin lost his footing and suddenly found himself airborne, swinging forward against his will. He wasn't given the chance to compensate before he slammed into his comrade. Both of them were sent wheeling across the room.

They crashed brutally against a tiled wall that gave way under their impact and sent them sliding limply to a stop in an unlit room. Unconscious, neither got up to pursue the fight.

Gohan stood still, listening, testing and tasting the chi coming off of the downed three, feeling for any intent or threatening power. The large one with the broken ribs had fallen into unconsciousness or death, red bubbles dribbling from his nose and mouth. None were giving off the kind of power required for battle. The fight, brief as it was, was over.

Gohan turned his attention to Sunow, concern tightening his brow. His Aeesu-jin friend had managed to drag his body to the far wall of the room and prop himself up, his back against the wall so he could face the room. He was staring at the hole in the wall where the two Aeesu-jin had dissapeared; his eyes were so wide they seemed to be buldging from his eyelids. Slowly, with a numb character to his movement, he turned his head to look at Gohan. His eyes met the boys, black and impenetrable. A mysterious boy, Sunow could handle. But.....where did _that_ kind of power from?

Gohan opened his mouth, then closed it again. The frown on his forehead deepening from the look the Aeesu-jin was giving him. Was it a look of shock? Dread? Fear? Did he now fear the boy, even though he was only trying to help.

Painfully, Sunow inhaled, parted his dry lips and spoke.

"You're bleeding."

"Huh?" Gohan said.

"Your cheek is bleeding."

He raised his hand to the side of his face and a warm stickyness met his fingers. The Aeesu-jin's tail had only grazed him, hadn't it? A small sting, perhaps a welt, could be expected. But it was more. Even where the slash ended, a small trickle of blood continued downward as it obeyed gravity's whim. It traced his jaw line and beaded at the tip of his chin. A small ruby droplet fell and made a quiet _pat_ as it hit Gohan's boot. There was no pain, just a swollen numbness. It would probably hurt later. Nothing to really worry about.

The boy leaned over Sunow and asked, "Are you okay?"

"I-" the Aeesu-jin tried without success to push himself up to his feet, "-don't think I'll die. I can't seem to walk at the moment...."

Gently as he could, the boy laced his hands under Sunow's arms and lifted him to his shaky feet. Leaning heavily on Gohan for support, he allowed himself to be helped out the door to Backlash headquarters.

"What do we do, now?" Gohan asked nerviously.

Before he had a chance to answer, Sunow sagged to the floor, nearly taking the boy down with him. On his knees and tenderly probing at an arm he was pretty sure to be broken, he said at a forced whisper, "We need to get home. Those guys you faught......are alot more trouble than they're worth." He gave a sudden wheeze that alarmed Gohan. "Did you kill them?"

Gohan looked back at the Backlash door. It stood, quiet and impregnable, looming and large and vastly technological as it concealed three beaten Aeesu-jin within.

"I don't know."

Sunow sagged closer to the floor, a small droplet of purple-red blood trickled from his delicate lips and splattered in stark contrast to the white tiles beneath him, "We....need to get home....as soon as....possible."

"I-" Gohan tried to speak, but the words died on his lips as the Aeesu-jin slumped to the ground in unconsciousness.

Surprised and alarmed, the boy kneeled beside him. With careful hands, he rolled Sunow onto his back and looked for any potentally fatal wounds. He couldn't make out any broken ribs, which was a relief, but the Aeesu-jin's entire body was riddled with dark, blotchy bruises and his back had a dark, deep welt that was weeping a thin thread of thick, oozy blood. His right arm seemed to have dislodged itself from its socket. All considered, Sunow had gotten off lucky. He would live.

Lifting the limp Aeesu-jin off the ground, Gohan suddenly realized he was on his own about navigation. Sunow's words rang through his head clearly.

_We need to get home as soon as possible._

Forcing himself to stay calm as a sudden, unwelcomed wave of panic tickled at his subconscious, he brought to the front of his mind the number of turns he had carefully tallied up in his mind. Fighting back the realization that if his figuring was just one turn off, he might never find Sunow's home again, he glanced up the hall way to his right, then up the hall way to his left. Taking a deep breath, he started in what was hopefully the correct path.

It wasn't easy going.

Quite often, he had to backtrack six or seven times to find the correct way, pausing, thinking, worrying; all the while, some unknown force nipped at his heels, sending him into a near frenzy of anxious energy that was unwanted and unappreciated to the boy who needed to keep a cool head more than anything else. Left, right, left, right, up, left.........

He was almost sure he was lost, doomed to run up and down halls until he either died of cold, starvation, or by being attacked by an angry pack of Aeesu-jin out to destroy him. That or he would have to wait for Sunow to regain consciousness to tell him where to go. Right, right......wait, now left.

All along the way, due to some awesome luck, they never ran into a single other person. Gohan was relieved, he had no clue how to explain himself if asked.

As his numbers dwindled into the tens, then the single digit numbers, his hopes suddenly became passionatly alive. He _was_ going to make it. Everything was going to be okay......

Then there was no more turns left to be counted. He was in the hall where Sunow's home supposedly was, but it seemed impossible to tell for sure. Nearly every hall looked just the same. His optimism suddenly met its arch-enemy pesimism and the two faught valiantly against eachother as Gohan slowly started walking down the hall, looking for anything familiar about the particular door he was seeking.

_I'm in the wrong place._

_No. I counted those turns perfectly. Isn't that the door?_

_Can't be. It's too big, remember how small Sunow's door was?_

_That's it! I'll just look for a small one._

_Those two over there both are small._

_That one. It has to be it._

Gohan hesitantly approached the door--far smaller than the Backlash door but seemed even more intimidating at the moment.

_So now I'll just walk in and--_

_And what, walk into some stranger's home? You could get arrested for that. _

_No, because this is the right place. It has to be._

He shifted Sunow's limp form to one arm and raised his hand to the control panel, his fingers hovering over the door-open button.

_This is it. Now I die._

_Were did _**_that_** notion come from?

_Because opening this door will somehow be our death._

_Nonsense....._

With a mustering of the boldness he had, he slammed his hand down on the control to reveal--

An apartment suspiciously similar to Sunow's. Hesitant about getting his hopes up, he made his way quietly inward, feeling around for the chi's of any living beings. Once inside, the door swished shut behind him. The sudden feeling of being boxed-in gave him a wild fight-or-flight feeling deep in his guts, but he swallowed his instincts with the power of reason and reached out with his senses.

And found the three familiar chi's of Freeza, Garlic and Bojack. All within the same complex. He had made it.

Lugging the body of Sunow to the couch, he heard a door further within the house swish open. He didn't bother turning around when he heard the surprised and demanding voice of Freeza sound out behind him.

"What happened?"

Gohan made sure Sunow was settled as comfortably as he could on the couch before answering, "He was attacked by three big Aeesu-jin. I'm not sure why. They were just.....hitting him, trying to kill him."

"If he was the one attacked, why are you hurt?"

Gohan brushed his hand over his cheek again. The blood had stopped flowing and was already drying up into a crispy, dark scab. He scraped the crusty trail off his jaw and chin with his fingernails, surprised at how much the small wound had bled. It must look far worse than it accually was.

"I came to Sunow's defense. I forgot what it's like to fight an enemy with a tail."

Freeza watched him with irrational suspition as he folded Sunow's limp arms over his chest, "You faught off three, large Aeesu-jin?"

Gohan thought perhaps he should get a wet rag to wip the blood off his face. Sunow could stand for a cleaning, too. He wasn't really paying attention to what Freeza was saying, but he absentmindedly answered, "Uh....yeah. They thought I was just some little alien boy or something. Didn't have any way of know I was stronger than them. It was an unfair fight, but they started it."

He ended the conversation by walking down the hallway and into Sunow's room. Feeling slightly guilty, he pulled Sunow's bedsheet off its matress. He went into the bathroom and got the sheet wet and returned to Sunow's unconscious form. Freeza was in the kitchen now, having lost interest in the whole ordeal and Gohan was gratefull he no longer had to deal with him.

Using the wet blanket, he scrubbed away at the half-wet blood on his face, cleaning off as much as he could and tenderly dabbing at the gash itself. It was starting to hurt again. It was trobbing.

Cleaning himself was the easy part. He looked at the bruised and bloody Sunow. His large almond-shaped eyes were closed and slightly puffy. His lip was split.

With a sigh, Gohan started rubbing at the stained dribble of blood that ran down the Aeesu-jin's chin. This could take a while.

***

Sunow finally climbed his way back to consciousness with a little shove by his subconscious. It wasn't pleasant. At first, his whole body only tingled like it was asleep. But the buzzy feeling intensified, almost as though a large colony of insects had taken up residency under his skin and were tearing out his nerve endings one by one to make room for their queen.

He moaned and regained ability to open his eyes. Coming more aware of his surroundings, he realized he was back in his own home again, laying on his couch, with a concerned Son Gohan crouching over him and trying to scrub the blood of his forehead.

"Sunow-san?" the youth's voice seemed particularly fuzzy to Sunow's ears, "Are you okay? Can you hear me?"

"My....arm hurts."

"I think it's broken. I set it as best I could, but I'm no doctor."

Sunow stretched his dry lips into a grateful smile that hurt.

"You got us home, then?"

Gohan nodded and started to wash the specks of blood off Sunow's arm. The Aeesu-jin drifted in and out of his mind for a few moments, thinking. He would have to leave the planet, now. As soon as he was good enough to travel. Until then, he would have to find somewhere else to heal. Hide as best he could from Backlash.

But at least he had his life. And his kids. The kids.......

"The kids will be getting out of school, soon!" he suddenly said, half sitting up before his whole body was suddenly wracked with intense pain, as though he were bursting apart like a dropped vase.

Gohan had already leapt to his feet, "Do they come home on their own?"

"Sometimes," the wounded Aeesu-jin said, his face pinched with pain lines, "But I doubt Backlash will give them the chance. They'll be killed before they get here...oooh."

The excitement made his head pulse madly, and his the sudden wave of throbbing, roaring ache stole his voice. Despite his resistance, unconsciousness crept over him again and he fainted from the pain.

Gohan was already out the door, sprinting in the direction he could only hoped he remembered was the school.

He ran down the hallway perhaps faster than he was supposed to. The other Aeesu-jin he passed gave him dirty looks as he sped by them, some he nearly knocked over in his hurry, while others yelled at him about slowing down and watching where he was going. He was beyond caring about what they thought. At the moment, the only concern he had was the well-fare of two particular children, everyone else on this stinking planet be damned.

He jogged down one corridor after another, hoping that he had remembered the correct number of turns. Rounding a third corner to the left, he felt for sure he was lost and might have to try asking for directions when he looked up and recognized the familiar sign he had seen once before: 'Grades 1-12', above which was a series of symbols he had identified as pure Aeesu-jin dialect.

He had found the school....But now what should he do? Should he go in? Or perhaps wait outside for the children to be dismissed. Sunow had said 'the kids will be getting out of school, soon.' But when exactly is 'soon'? What if the children had already been released and were making their way home along a different rout? Chances are those Backlash people would find them before they got home, and without the protection Gohan was sure he could give them, they would be easy prey for the ruthless group.

"Hey. Son Gohan. What are you doing here?"

Startled, the boy turned around to see Sunow's two children--Forester and Eesei--standing in the hall hardly thirty feet beyond. Forester had his hands on his hips and had his head cocked at a suspicious angle. The little girl was holding onto a piece of paper that was dripping various neon shades of paint. Gohan looked around. If school was out, wouldn't the other children also be in the hall? Beside the three of them, the vacinity was deserted.

"Loose something?" the older Aeesu-jin asked, "Where's Papa?"

"Um," the boy's dialogue failed him momentarily, "No, I didn't loose anything. You don't have to call me 'Son Gohan' all the time. Just 'Gohan.' Your dad's been hurt so he sent me to come and get you."

Eesei looked frightened. Forester looked angry, "Was it Backlash? Did they do something to him?"

Gohan blinked, "I....yes. But I didn't think Sunow-san told anyone about-"

Forester snorted and shrugged, "I always read Papa's assignments when he doesn't know it. I like to know what's going on, since he never can tell us. Damn. I knew those Backlash people would pull something like this."

Both Gohan and Forester lowered their heads to brood at the unfairness of the situation.

Suddenly uncomfortable, Forester asked, "So what happened to your face?"

Feeling suddenly self-conscious, Gohan put his fingers to the whip-mark that ran the length of his cheekbone, "Nothing."

"Forester?" Eesei said, tugging at her brother's sash, "I wanna go home."

They turned and headed back down the hall.

* * *

Sunow woke up a second time, feeling achy and gritty. He could tasted old blood in his mouth. He was leaning over the side of the couch and spitting out globs of dark red when Freeza came back into the room from the kitchen.

"Freeza-san," the wounded Aeesu-jin called to him, finding his voice could only come out at a whisper. He cleared his throat and asked, "Where did Son Gohan go?"

Freeza studied him for a while, silent. He didn't owe this man anything. He was just some stranger....but he was kin. Freeza hadn't met too many Aeesu-jin besides himself. He answered, "He went to get your brats."

Sunow sank deeper into the couch cushions in relief. After seeing what Gohan could do to those three, burly Aeesu-jin back at Backlash headquarters, he felt a decent amount of confidence he would see his children again. But they would have to run away from this planet. Run as far and as fast as they could and never come back.

"Damn Backlash. Damn them to hell. They're probably the ones who are going to blow up this planet. Just like Son Gohan said."

Freeza hadn't moved from the edge of the room, and had heard every word. That damn boy had told him.

"You think Backlash would destroy their own planet?" Freeza asked the other.

Sunow paused to speak as specks of flashing darkness wiggled in front of his eyes for a moment and he nearly passed out, "Yes. They seem to be mad."

For some reason, Freeza thought he might be right. It was something, anyway. So far, since arriving on this planet, they had no leads and no clues about who might be the culprit, and were nearly down to no time. He suddenly felt the crazy, but strong impulse to follow this.

At that moment, Garlic entered the room. He hadn't been aware Gohan had come and gone, leaving the injured Sunow in his wake, so the situation caught him as totally out of the blue.

"What the hell?"

Following his impulse, Freeza darted his ruby eyes to look at the gremlin, "You. You're from Earth, right?"

Still surprised and confused, it took Garlic a second to register the question, "Yes."

"And you can sense chi? Like that damned kid and all those other damned Earthlings?"

"Yes."

"Good. I might need that skill. Follow me, we're going to check something out."

Freeza's conviction was terribly contagious. The two of them headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" Sunow asked from the couch.

"To check out Backlash," Freeza said as he and Garlic vanished out the door.

Sunow blinked into the empty room, suddenly moaned as another tidal wave of pain spread over his body, rocking his bones to the core. He spat out another glob of old blood onto his carpeting and allowed himself to pass out.

* * *

Gohan, Forester and Eesei had hardly walked for ten minutes when they heard a barking voice sound from behind them.

"You. Kids. Stop right there."

The three turned. They had only passed a few people thus far along; as far as they knew, except for them, the halls were deserted. It wasn't so anymore. Filling the hall behind them were four large Aeesu-jin. Their tails whipped behind them threateningly and their smiles showed violent capacities.

"By the decree of Backlash and associates, your father has been convicted of murder. Hence, he and his children, you, are sentenced to immediate death. Do not attempt escape. We are trained professionals and you have no chance of getting away."

"This is bull shit," Forester said in disbelief, "We didn't do anything."

The large Aeesu-jin smiled, "I don't really care. I follow my orders, and they say you die."

He raised his hand and shot a concentrated blast of chi, aiming for Forester's heart. It would have been a quick, painless death if it had a chance to hit him.

But Gohan was not having it. Frustrated that another potential fight was already in the works, he laid hold of the Aeesu-jin boy's arm and pulled him out of the blast's sights. The burning beam sailed harmlessly past, hitting into the wall behind them and burning its way through and out of sight. For a while, both the three children and the four Aeesu-jin assailants all stared, mesmerized, at the small burnt hole.

And Son Gohan decided enough was enough. This would end. Now.

A wild, blazing wind suddenly enveloped him and his chi flared to uncomprehendable heights. The very ground, cealing and walls gave in under the sudden and intense bombardment of the boy's increasing power and caved in on all sides, screaming their metalic torment. His surroundings suddenly looked like the inside of a perfect sphere, increasing in size along with the boy's chi. And Gohan felt like something was terribly wrong. He pushed more power into his chi flux, sending his raven hair flapping wildly above him, each strand tugging at its roots and trying to escape and fly off on their own accord.

Forester held onto his sister as tight as he could and gripped the ground with his talon-like feet. The four attackers faired little better as they scraped at the ground with their toes and flapped their tails wildly behind them to try to keep their weight evenly destributed enough to keep standing.

The silver aura around Gohan flickered to gold, then back to white and back to gold; everything looked like it was in a lunatic strobe light, suddenly dulled by the yellow light then heightened by the white. It was getting hotter in the hall, the bent and twisted walls closest to Gohan started to melt like butter, gleaming with molten wetness and turning as slick as glass. Slowly, his aura stopped flickering and stayed white.

Feeling even more like something was wrong, Gohan stopped straining his chi, letting out a deep exhalation from the bottom of his lungs. In the after-math, his still-black hair settled back down to frame his face. Small pieces of the cealing that hadn't melted into place fell to the ground in an inappropriatly cheerful pitter-patter. The boy looked at his hands, turning them over, looked down at his body, then looked directly at Forester with a question in his eyes. Words came to his lips.

"I can't-"

The words died before finishing as sudden two fists were rammed into his stomach, aimed upward to drive under the ribs.

Two of the Aeesu-jin had taken the momentary pause to break through the boy's defenses, and once through they had no intention of stopping after the first hit. While one swung backward to whip his tail across the boy's face, the other drove a second fist where the first one had landed, square in the stomach.

It didn't necissarily hurt Gohan so much as surprised him. Oh, it hurt plenty, but there was another factor that was keeping him off balance that desperatly needed solving. He still hadn't caught his breath from the first attack.

_Not now or you'll be beaten to death!_

Of all the deaths the boy had seen, he decided being beaten to death must the the worst. He quickly re-adjusted himself to his position. The enemy was too close to for him to fight back very effectively, the number of assailants had increased once the first two moved in.

Fighting three unsuspecting Aeesu-jin just starting to launch an attack was totally different than fighting four Aeesu-jin that were already attacking. As stars splashed across his sight when a fist collided with the back of his head, he dropped to the ground onto his hands, kicking upward so his feet were above his head. Twisting his hips and swinging out his legs, he managed to kick all four of them in the face with one gracefull sweep.

He pushed off the ground with his arms, sending him feet-first toward the cealing, he seemed to land upsidedown on the tiles above their heads. Kicking off to head back downward at an incredible speed, he pointed his elbow downward. The Aeesu-jin directly below him didn't have a chance as Gohan's bent arm slammed into his back. He collapsed with Gohan ontop of him. The boy's elbow continued down and a distinguishable _snap_ could be heard as the Aeesu-jin's spine broke.

Gohan didn't even pause to be ill at what he had done. He launched himself at a second Aeesu-jin, and everything turned strange as all his surrounding seemed to vanish. The only thing left existing were him and his three opponents and the moving backgrounds that didn't seem to exist. It was a frightening new feeling. A high.

And suddenly, an angry, burning want for something took him. A need for something he couldn't place. Someone was screaming and it took him a while to realize it was himself.

_More...._

He slammed his fist into the second Aeesu-jin's throat, felt his wind-pipe beneath the skin rupture. The rush. Everything was moving, flying, the walls, the cealing. The tiles weren't lines but squiggles that looped around him and led him to his next target. The third Aeesu-jin was stonger. He blocked Gohan's first attack, which for some reason made the boy's blood boil with an even stronger excitment. The rush of battle. The high of fighting.

He was still screaming.

_More until it's all white!_

His second attack went right through the Aeesu-jin's defenses just as easily as it went through his stomach and out the other side. Warm and wet, his senses told him, warm and wet inside. We're all warm and wet inside. He pulled his fist out in a splash of crimson and went after the last Aeesu-jin.

He was trying to run, to escape and survive. Gohan raised a palm and blasted. The Aeesu-jin's body was picked up off the ground by the force of the blast. Gohan blasted again. This second one sent the Aeesu-jin to the ground. His body hit the tiles and slid quite a few feet before it stopped and laid still.

Gohan was panting. The only sound his acute senses picked up was the his own ragged exhaling.

_Huff_....._Huff_....._Huff_.........

His throat felt surprisingly hoarse. What the hell had happened? A few times before -- very rarely -- he had felt that crazed thrill of the fight. Had felt the strange urge to wish you could fight forever, until your muscles tore and your bones broke. But it had never been in an actual fight, a life and death battle against a weaker opponent. Never like that. It had only happened in the Room of Spirit and Time, when he had been fighting with his father for twenty or thirty hours on end. Right before he passed out, it would come to him. Where he wanted to fight more even though his body was about to stop.

But that had only been the first quarter of the year. Once he had finally pushed himself into the Super Saiya-jin form, the insane craze went away, freeing him to more power that was easier to control.

So why the hell did it rear its ugly head now? His arm felt suddenly cold, and he found that it was slick with blood that was not his own. That Aeesu-jin he had punched in the stomach.......

Those four had come to kill them. It was their soul intention, and they would not have stopped until they could no longer move. They were evil people. No one would mourn them. They deserved to die. None of these reasoning helped Gohan as he realized he had killed four people. He could claim it was self-defense, but it would feel like lying. It was cold blood.

"Are you okay, Son Gohan?" Forester's voice broke into his thoughts, "You were screaming so bad. Are you hurt? Did they hurt you? You sure as hell hurt them. Where did you learn to fight like that?"

"Forester?" Gohan asked.

"Yeah?"

"Something is wrong. I couldn't.....," Gohan tried to make sense of what had happened, "I couldn't transform. Couldn't turn into my Super Saiya-jin form."

"You can transform, too, huh?" the Aeesu-jin boy asked, nudging Gohan in the arm to get him to start moving down the hall toward home again, and leading the smitten Eesei by the hand, "Too bad. No one can transform when they're on this planet."

Gohan jerked his head around to stare at the Aeesu-jin youth, "What?"

"Didn't Freeza tell you?"

"He said.....that Aeesu-jins couldn't transform when they were on the planet."

Forester looked at him like one would look at a crazy person, "You think that we would put ourselves into a situation where we can't transform but, if they get onto the planet's surface, our enemy can? That would be insane. Rediculious."

Gohan nodded numbling in understanding. It made sense. But that didn't matter to him at the moment. He looked at his blood-covered arm. He didn't care about learning about planet Aeesu anymore. Didn't care about saving these people.

He just wanted to take a warm bath and go home.

**To be continued.........**

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	12. CM12

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 12**

"So where are we going?" Garlic asked as he walked beside Freeza down a hall that looked suspiciously like the hall before it, likewise the one before that. Navigating didn't seem like an option to the gremlin, so he allowed himself to be led to their destination, wherever it may be. But he didn't have to like it. He pulled his cape in closer to his shoulders. It was chilly in the halls.

"To check out Backlash," Freeza said, switching his tail behind him as he walked. They brushed past an Aeesu-jin couple that was talking in quiet murmurs.

Garlic looked behind them, then to the sides. Were they whispering about him? He never did like large groups of people, or most living things for that matter. He wondered how long getting there would take, "What's Backlash?"

"One of many governing offices," Freeza said. He paused as a very large Aeesu-jin suddenly emerged from one of the apartments as they passed. With his bullhorns and largely proportioned body, Freeza did _not_ want to get into a scuffle with this guy. They passed each other without exchanging looks.

"What makes you think they're involved?" Garlic asked as he, too, eyed the large Aeesu-jin.

"A hunch," the other said, his voice constricting with annoyance at the questions, "At least we're doing _something_. It was getting frustrating sitting idle around that damn apartment."

Garlic had suffered years of torment in the hell he created. Being cooped up in a three-room apartment with sweet water, cool air and a soft bed didn't seem too harsh of a living. He nodded anyway; they did, after all, have a mission to carry out.

They walked in considerable silence, brushing past other Aeesu-jin and allowing themselves to think about whatever came to mind. It really did feel good to get out of Sunow's stuffy home and walking about again, stretching their legs, moving in straight lines instead of pacing in circles. Garlic could almost thank Freeza. Almost. He just wasn't the gratuidious kind of guy.

Time measurment was hazing and the gremlin didn't know how long they had been walking before they came to a stop before a rather large, intimidating metal door.

"We're here," Freeza said. He didn't bother announcing his arrival as he raised his hand to the control panel and palmed open the door. It slid aside with a soft hiss; within, it was rather dark, and the cold pricked at Garlic's skin. They entered.

There was movement. Moving around in the dark, Garlic could see at least six Aeesu-jin, talking in hushed tones and trying to move something that looked rather large. At first, he couldn't make out what it was--a luminous shape that didn't make sense; Garlic's eyes were too used to the bright halls to adjust instantly.

Slowly, the scene took shape. As the door now behind them quietly closed, the room proved to have a small blue light shining from some unknown source, and Garlic's eyes started to make out everything clearly. It was surprising. The object they were trying to move was a body, a large, dead, Aeesu-jin body; two of the living Aeesu-jin within looked battered, and they sat in defeated shame as they were bandaged and tended to by fussing Aeesu-jin paramedics.

"So the kid was telling the truth when he said he had a scuffle with Backlash," Freeza mused, rubbing the back of his index finger against the point of his chin. He looked intrigued.

Garlic only half heard him. There was another being in the darkness. This other being, seeming to be half made of smoke and shadows, seemed to live in the darkness around it, attracting little to no attention at a glance. But Garlic was a demon. He, too, lived in shadows, and the figure's near invisibility only drew his attention more. He was a strange looking fellow, considerably tall and covered with thin, white fur. An aqua shock of hair ran down the center of his head in an almost rediculious mohawk-type look. He was obviously not of the Aeesu-jin race.

But he certainly seemed to be in charge. With a quiet, daringly polite sounding voice, he issued his orders to a larger Aeesu-jin, who then relayed the instructions to the rest of the group. He deeply intrigued Garlic.

As of yet, none of the busy Aeesu-jin or the white stranger had noticed Garlic or Freeza as they worked diligently at their given tasks. Surely it was only a matter of time until someone noticed them, and the gremlin was quite sure it wouldn't be good when that happened. Freeza seemed content to stand, calm and collected, out in the open; in the way.

"Who's the guy in the corner over there? White fur," Garlic whispered to him.

The other glanced up, narrowing his almond eyes in puzzlement, "I haven't a clue."

And just as the two were staring directly at the blue-haired stranger, he turned his head their way. His odd gold eyes met Freeza's ruby, then Garlic's ebony. They locked eye-contact for a few seconds each, then the white furred stranger called to a large Aeesu-jin that was passing by. Garlic tensed.

The two whispered to eachother, the white stranger pointing at Garlic and Freeza in obvious inquiry. The large Aeesu-jin shook his head--no, he didn't know who they were. They both stared at the two unknown guests in perplexion, when suddenly the quiet hum-drum of whispering Aeesu-jin was broken as an one of them jumped to his feet and raised his voice.

"Hey, isn't that the off-planet Aeesu-jin we're looking for?"

Garlic felt Freeza nudge him in the arm, it was time for them to leave. They both began to back up.

One of the wounded Aeesu-jin--a splint half administered to his arm--joined the first in raising his voice, "Yeah! That's him. And his little alien, too!"

Freeza and Garlic continued to slowly back toward thed door.

* * *

Sunow opened his eyes. Bojack was shuffling around in his kitchen; perhaps he was looking for something to eat. The Aeesu-jin's hazy mind recalled watching Son Gohan eat, and to his half-conscious mind, it was humorous. He chuckled hoarsely; it felt like he was swallowing gravel.

He tried to sit up, probably too quickly, and darkness nipped at the edge of his vision. He lay back down and waited until the spell passed. Slower -- oh, so slowly -- he lifted one leg, then the other over the side of the couch. Using arms that had never felt so weak, he pushing himself up until he was finally erect. He only sat up, but to him it was one of the greatest achievements in his life. And it hurt.

With a grunt of effort, he stood, staggered, nearly fell as bright flashes of color swam across his eyes, and grabbed the couch arm for support. He stood like that, his pale hand gripping the material of the couch for all he was worth, for quite a while. The colors and spots and following darkness that swam through him abated again; he was not standing.

Slowly, slowly he made his way to his computer console. He had some things he needed to look into.

* * *

Gohan followed Forester, who in turn carried Eesei, and was grateful for it. Searching, counting turns, praying to whatever kami happened to hear him that he would safely find the correct place he was looking for was extremely taxing; the boy had enough. Still, out of newfound habit, he counted their turns on their way back, curious if his calculations would be accurate, or if the past two occurrences had been blind luck. Though he was sure his form of navigation was right, something about the way they moves seemed off. He got to the end of his counted turns and Forester didn't show any signs of slowing down. Where were they going?

"Son Gohan, would you stop that?"

Gohan jumped when Forester talked to him. He had been so busy paying attention to his surroundings he had almost forgotten the thing he was following -- a moving body and tail -- was a secient, living being. He blinked.

"Stop what?"

"That," the young Aeesu-jin said, pointing at him, "You keep chewing on your bottom lip."

"Sorry....," Gohan said, making a conscious habit to clamp his teeth together. He hadn't realized he had been doing anything. When he flicked his tongue over his slightly dry lips, he felt many salty, tender areas. He had chewed off all the pieces of dead lip skin, making the cracking and drying of his lips even worse.

"Why are you so nervous?"

"Hmn? I'm not....." the boy asked, touching fingertips to his mouth. His lips were chapped; he was probably dehydrating. "Where are we going? This isn't the way I took before."

Forester smiled a chilling Aeesu-jin smile, reminding Gohan too much of Freeza's, "We're taking a different way home. Backlash goons would be waiting for us if we went the other way."

Well, that was cleared up easy enough. If only this whole situation could be solved as easily; the sheer weight of his mission was pushing down on his thin shoulders with such force he was sure he would collapse, submitting to such a brooding depression that he wouldn't even matter if he failed or not.

But he didn't submit; didn't collapse. He just walked beside Forester, not bothering to wonder why Eesei was being so quiet. He could at least look forward to a drink of water.

"How long till we get to your home?" He asked.

"Long enough," A short, simple reply. An annoying one.

"You're biting your lip again."

Gohan squeezed his eyes shut and kept them thus for a few minutes. He felt old.

***

By the time they reached Sunow's door, Gohan had composed himself. He was almost embarrassed to admit to himself that he was probably hungry again; hungry, tired, irritable. And now, he couldn't even have the safety of his Super Saiya-jin form. Strange how, only a few years ago, he had been unable to use the form at all, and he never missed it. Perhaps now he was spoiled, so used to the extreme Super Saiya-jin power at his beck and call that he simply took it for granted. He stopped himself. He didn't have time for self pity, _or_ self loathing. He did moan. He hadn't felt this bad -- emotionally, mentally, physically or spiritually, in a long time. But, as stated, he had pulled himself together after a brief self-analysis and felt he was capable of continuing on.

He just hoped to kami that he wouldn't have to fight again. At least not today, if not ever. He didn't want to have to deal with that savage killer that lived beneath his skin.

"Okay, we're here, Son Gohan," Forester said. The boy realized he had been so busy thinking he hadn't realized Forester had stopped walking. He had passed them and continued down the hall for nearly twelve paces before Forester had called to him. The door had already been opened by Forester. They entered.

A quick glance around informed Gohan that Sunow was no longer laying on the couch. A tickle of chi coming from the kitchen informed him where Bojack was......but Freeza and Garlic were gone. Bojack was here, but Sunow, Freeza and Garlic were gone......what if-

"Son Gohan, good to see you and the children made it back okay! I must admit I was worried. Unfortunately, things have gone from bad to worse."

Sunow. Sunow was here, alive and well. In fact, he must have been well enough to get up from the couch and move across the room to the computer console -- where Gohan could now see him. Nothing to worry about, "Where are Freeza and Garlic?"

Sunow, who had been eyeing the red-purple Aeesu-jin blood splattered across the boy's gi, blinked his still swollen eyes in surprise, "How did you know they weren't here?"

"Uh-," _that's right, Aeesu-jin don't sense chi-_" Just a talent I have. Where are they?"

Sunow pursed his lips into a thin line, there was bad news, "Not long after you left, Freeza heard me talking about Backlash. I don't really remember everything I said, but it must have been about them trying to destroy the planet. He and Garlic left to check up on them."

"Oh," Gohan said, and started to head down the hall to the bathroom -- he wanted to wash the blood away and take a nice, long drink of water. He felt ill. Perhaps he could even take a warm, soothing bath.

"That's not the end of it," Sunow called to him. Gohan stopped.

"What?"

"After I managed to stand up -- a difficult task, I assure you," Sunow said, "I went directly to the computer and hacked into Backlash's information archives to delete my home address and anything else they had on me to delay the time it took for them to come here. I didn't know how long it would take you to get back. While I was there, I decided to look around further, and found a large amount of top-security files, all titled 'Tahch-jin.'"

"Tahch-jin?" Gohan asked.

"Yes, so I-"

"When did you get back?" Bojack interrupted Sunow as he entered the room, noticing Gohan and the children. He narrowed his eyes, gave a short laugh and said, "Looks like someone's been in a fight or two. What happened to your face?"

Gohan covered the gash on his cheek, that question was starting to get on his nerves, "Nothing," he returned his attention to Sunow, "What's a Tahch-jin?"

"I don't know," Sunow admitted, "I couldn't break into that information. But when I looked for related topics to them, I found something that will no doubt be met with discouragement."

Bojack crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. Gohan steeled himself for the worse. Forester set Eesei down and told her to go to her room.

"What is it?"

"Hardly five minutes ago, there was a report that two off-planets, an Aeesu-jin and an alien, were captured at the scene where three Backlash Aeesu-jin were brutally beaten, resulting in one death and two hospitalizations."

Gohan's mouth went dry, "Three Backlash Aeesu-jin.....those three that were attacking you?"

Sunow nodded, "The very three. I guess your retaliation has driven Backlash into a frenzy--they hate off-planets intensly."

Gohan felt horrifically numb. If Freeza and/or Garlic were to die, then Cell would.....

"But there's yet another odd turn."

Gohan didn't know if he would be able to take another twist to this winding situation, it was like being caught in the middle of a giant knot--unable to release himself, or even know where to start. It was difficult to breath, and for the first time he realized his fight with those four Aeesu-jin had hurt him--perhaps he had a cracked rib; perhaps internal bleeding. It was a unwelcomed, if not familiar, feeling.

"The Tahch-jin, whoever they are and however many there are, seemed particularly interested in getting ahold of Freeza and Garlic. They were taken into custody; any further information cannot be found.......except where they are being held."

A tiny, clawing hope arose, "So they're alive?"

"Since last report, yes. But I doubt they'll remain thus. Whatever these Tahchi-jin want with them, it can't be good."

Gohan's mouth felt like sand-paper. He was dirty, tired, thirsty and hunger was arising once again. He had already faught seven Aeesu-jin within a period of two hours, and had realized he could no longer use the Super Saiya-jin power he was hoping he would be able to depend on. He had every right to wash up, and take a nap.

"You said you know where they're being held?"

"Yes...," Sunow said, and suddenly he looked surprised, "You're not seriously considering trying to save them!"

Gohan pursed his lips, "Can you give me directions on how to get there?"

"Son Gohan," Forester said, "You could be killed. You don't even like those bums, who the hell cares if they die?"

"You don't understand this situation. Things are complex. Besides, if I'm careful, I can get them out with only a few people knowing, and they'll be unconscious before they can do anything about it."

"What about the Tahch-jin?" Sunow insisted, "From the sound of it, they could be stronger than we Aeesu-jin. If you go, you might die."

Gohan paused. Dying would mean the whole mission would be a failure, his universe and Kami Larkas's would cave in, erasing the existance of both. Everyone he knew and loved would cease to be, and he would never see his mother, or Kuririn, or Piccolo-san or anyone else ever again. But being forced to confront Cell a second time, unable to transform to even his first form of Super Saiya-jin.........

"I won't be killed," he said. He met Sunow's eyes, "Please. Give me the directions-"

"Dammit, bozu!" Bojack suddenly raised his voice. Gohan whipped his head around to look at the blue giant--who was rising from the couch and looking particularly angry. Instinctively, the boy started to raise his chi, "I don't give a damn if you die or not. I'd kill you myself. But if you die, I have to go with you!"

Gohan was quiet for a moment, composing himself, pulling himself together, wanting to be calm when he spoke, "Some things are worse than death."

Bojack approached him, stood directly infront of him, staring down. Their size difference was rediculious, but neither seemed aware of it.

"How the hell would you know," Bojack said, "You've never died before."

Gohan couldn't respond to that. He had never died, though he had faced many near-death expiriances. But time was wasteing, "I'm going. If you really want to keep me from getting us both killed, you're welcome to come along."

And just as he said it, he realized having Bojack come along was the last thing he needed right now.

"Fine. I will."

Kuso.......

**To be continued.......**

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	13. CM13

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 13**

They approached the door Sunow had directed them to. Large and steel and possessing a very impregnable appearance; they didn't have to wonder if they had found the right place or not. This had to be it. Somewhere inside, Freeza and Garlic were being held, perhaps being tortured, perhaps being killed. As much as they hated it, they had to rescue them.

Gohan put his hands on his hips and stared up at the expansive entrance. Too big. It had to be considered simply too big. What kind of creature would need a door that big? It was big compared to even the largest of people he had seen. Big compared to Bojack. Big compared to Freeza's father. Hell, one could probably fly Freeza's whole flaming ship through it and clear it with more than enough room.

Too big. It must be loud when it opens. And take a while. Surely one could not have the element of surprise if they used the front door, and this front door was proof. And they needed surprise on their side. And luck. And time. And silence. Stealth. Hope. Mostly luck.

Gohan felt weary.

"So are we going to do this, or just stare at the door?" Bojack asked behind him. Gohan squeezed his eyes shut in regret -- he had invited Bojack to come. Things seemed more preposterous than hopeless, though Gohan had a terrible feeling in the back of his mind -- gobbling up his hopes -- that he would never get off this damned planet and back to his own time. Or if it did all end, it would be when the planet exploded. He felt exhasted, his tail hung limply behind him.

"We should try to find another way in." He said, and started to walk farther down the hall, watching the walls with a critical eye as he passed. He crouched down and ran his hand against the tiles as though feeling for something.

Bojack didn't follow, "Taking down a couple of these weaklings wouldn't even be worth our effort. Lets just bardge in the front door, blast all the guards to hell and get those two damn idiots and leave. I don't want to have to put up with all this sneaking around crap."

Gohan didn't respond at first. He rapped his knuckles against the tiles here, then there, holding his ear hardly an inch away from the surface. It was only a hope. He didn't know exactly what he was looking for, but he was pretty sure he had found it. He pulled back his fist, gathered some of his power into it, and swung inward. He hardly tapped the wall before stopping himself in mid punch. A mere tap would do, it was only a wall.

The wall cracked, then slowly caved in. As he had hoped he would, he had found a vent--one of millions that pumped cold air into residences and facilities. A sub-zero blast erupted from the hole, toying with the boy's hair and stinging his eyes and nose. Though Gohan had been careful, it still made a considerable ruckus, even when he tried to catch most of the falling tiles and plaster with his hands.

It wasn't a big hole in the wall. Hardly two feet in heigth, and one foot in length. But Gohan was small enough. As he picked out some of the sharper tiles that stuck out around the hole he said, "You can use the front door. Infact, I'm counting on you to."

Bojack didn't say anything. He narrowed his golden eyes.

The destroyed plaster had given up quite a bit of white dust, which settled on the boy's skin and made it look gray. Wiping at his face with the back of his arm, Gohan said, "If you do, you'll probably cause a disturbance, or more importantly a distraction. I can take one five, maybe six Aeesu-jin, but if all the gaurds I think there are come rushing at me at once........" No need to finish the sentance.

"So you want me to get the whole place to try to kill me, so they're too busy to realize you're even there?" Bojack grinned, "Fine. A little bozu like you shouldn't be allowed to play with the big guys anyway."

Gohan gave the closest thing he could get to a smirk, "Maybe we'll be able to pull this off, after all."

And so the boy got down on his stomach and wiggled and squirmed his body through the small hole in the wall, the last thing to vanish within being the tip of his tail. Bojack raised his fist into the air, took aim, and tore himself an enterance right through the door.

* * *

Joru Le'armont stood in the center of the room, where the most light could be found. It was too dark in here. Dark and dirty-looking. In every characteristic, it was Henning's. The bastard probably purposely made it thus simply to make it all the more uncomfortable to him. He checked his palms; despite the dirty atmosphere, every white hair he could see on his body was clean, shining their vibrant snowy strands like so much raw quartz. Semi-content that he hadn't been contaminated by the atmosphere, he ran his hand through the shock of blue hair that ran down the center of his head.

He tried to picture his brother -- so identical to himself -- sitting around this mud hole in total relaxation.

As he lifted the hem of his robe off the ground to avoid soiling it on the unsanitary looking floor, he called to one of the Aeesu-jin sentries who he insisted on having around at all times; they may be murdering monsters, but they were damn loyal at a price and incredibly strong as body guards.

"Has my brother Henning given call, yet?"

The sentry clicked at a small computer he kept attached to his arm. He read something. Looking up, the sentry said, "I'm sorry, sir. No."

Joru swore. True to Tahch-jin custom, he loved his brother with all the affection his family required but _dammit he really hated him sometimes!!_ Why his sibling didn't simply go along with what he wished was beyond frustration. Why the hell would he want to capture a couple aliens? Sure, they weren't Aeesu-jin, but if they had dealings with the Aeesu-jin they should just be allowed to die on the planet.

No, of coarse Henning wouldn't see such logic. He had his curiosities, too; Joru had to allow him that. And unlike Joru, who had a vast fascination with inanimate objects -- old fossils, stones, antiques, ect. -- Henning was vastly interested in the living. That alone was an okay hobby. But it was Joru's required brotherly love that prevented him from reporting Henning for his fascination not with living so much as killing the living.

Henning was a sadist, living to stop others from doing so. But, like his brother, he also liked to play with original things, things others couldn't find, others couldn't touch. It was strange, how brothers worked together. They traveled through space, in search of their passions. Joru collected his rocks, Henning collected his lives, and they were pretty happy with the arrangement.

Except when Henning brought his play things onto the ship.

Joru wrung his hands together when he remembered his brother's last subject.

Rocks and living things really were different.

Joru turned his attention to the printed out message Henning had sent him before vanishing off to wherever it was his brother vanished off to. Short, precise, and hand written. A very Henning way to write messages.

_Brother--_

_I'm leaving these two off-planets in your care while I take care of some business. There is at least one more little alien running around out there -- described as a boy, five feet, black hair, orange clothes, thought to have a tail, but it's not verified. If any of the sentries come across him, have them apprehend him immediately. I'm very intrigued with this one. _

_--Henning Le'armont_

Joru crumpled up the paper, "Yaro."

"Sir!!" An Aeesu-jin sentry yelled from the terminal at which he sat.

Bemoaning as he crossed the dark, dirty floor, Joru leaned his considerable height over the seated Aeesu-jin, "What is it?"

The sentry looked up at him, fear of something unknown on his face, "Sir....there's a break-in in progress."

* * *

Gohan blew warm air onto his fingers as he scrambled through a shaft that blasted freezing air in his face nonstop. The cold was already getting to him, freezing his outer extremities -- his ear were like ice! It seemed that, despite the hundreds and hundreds of differences that range throughout all the planets of the universe, the air vents seemed suspiciously similar.

They were dark, cold, metal and dusty. Very dusty.

Gohan sneezed.

He didn't have an exact knowledge of where he was going as he half crawled, half scooched down one frigid vent after another, trying to keep the _klang-klang-klang_ sound that came from his elbows as they dragged the rest of him along to a minimum. The only direction he could really go by was, behind him, Bojack's chi raged through the smaller Aeesu-jin chi's, and ahead somewhere he could feel Freeza's chi, dormant and unmoving. It was perhaps the first and last time Gohan would ever feel glad to know the Aeesu-jin was alive. Garlic must have sunken his chi to indetectability like any good Earth-native would, because Gohan could not detect him. Garlic was immortal, however. As the boy knew from personal experience, killing him was the next thing to impossible.

Thank Kami Freeza didn't know how to hide his chi or finding them would be close to impossible.

Up.

Gohan suddenly got the feeling that Freeza's chi was more above him than ahead of him. Up. He had to go up. The boy continued to crawl down the vent he was in, watching for someway to follow his senses. His skin looked gray in the pale light that filtered in through the vents-slats that led off to various rooms. Lucky for him, most were empty. Though he tried to be stealthy, he was making quite a racket.

_Klang Klang Klang._ He finally found a vent leading upward, but it was barred by a fan; humming and blasting cold air upward, its blades spun at an incredible rate. Not fast compared to the speeds Gohan was used to.

Looking through the grates that ran up and down the vent he was already in to make sure no one was in the rooms closest to him, he squirmed in the cramped space to lay on his back beneath the fan to see his target better; he put his hand up and with a single finger, stopped the blade from rotating. As quietly as he could, he wrapped his fingers around the blades and gave a solid yank, tearing the fan out of it's frame. The mechanisms inside it gave off a dying _wrrrrrr...._ before going silent.

He lay still on his back beneath the vertical vent, listening to the silence, trying to ignore the dust that fell through and landed on his face; got into his eyes. He counted to one hundred, listening for any sign he had been discovered.

Nothing.

Setting the destroyed fan off to the side, he slipped his thin body upward. The vertical vent was far wider than the horizontal ones; Gohan checked, and each side proved to be the length of an arm. Breathing space. He could just as easily have flown, but he wasn't sure if scouters had been invented yet; and if not, surely some form of chi detection must have been. If he intended to remain on the sly, he would have to climb. And so he did.

It reminded him quite a bit of climbing up steep canyon walls way back when he was being trained by Piccolo. With his back pressed against one side of the vent, and his feet pushing against the wall opposite, he had himself braced securely. Keeping himself wedged as best he could, he clambered upward, following Freeza's chi and hoping.

Always hoping.

* * *

Joru watched on a screen the sentry had tapped into from a surveillance camera. On screen, he watched one of the biggest, meanest looking giants he had ever witnessed, ripping and tearing his way through a pack of Aeesu-jin guards while his lava hair trailed behind him. Once the giant was done destroying the pack of Aeesu-jin, he went after another, giant fists swinging, teeth exposed in a feral smile that sent shivers running up and down Joru's spine.

What was even more frightening was the fact that he didn't even seem to have a goal. It was mindless destruction, death, wounded and dead Aeesu-jin bodies strewned one room after another as the unknown assailant tore his way around, destroying with his bare hands -- Joru had yet to see him use chi.

And there was quite a bit of purple-red blood puddling the floor, as though some gory storm cloud had just rained out it's life upon the cold tiles. Though Joru didn't know it, Bojack was having the time of his life.

"What the hell does he want?" Joru said, his voice surprisingly quiet, not waiting for an answer, he turned to the other three sentry in the room -- all of them except the one sitting at the computer console --, "Stop him! Get down there and kill him! Do whatever it takes to keep him from getting any farther!"

The three sentry looked at each other, faces riddled with fear.

"Anyone that brings that monster down can have half my fortune!" Joru said. The guards looked surprised. Joru didn't lie.

"Sir!" they yelled and ran out of the room.

Joru turned back to the sentry seated at the computer, "Just you and me, now."

The sentry didn't seem like he heard him. His eyes were glued to the murdering giant on the screen, he didn't even really flinch as the blue giant caved a fellow Aeesu-jin's ribs in, splattering his face with blood -- at this point, Joru noticed the blue giant had a prominent scar running diagonally between his eyes.

"Suppose....," the sentry said to himself, rubbing his chin.

"Hrm?" Joru asked, the horror of just watching the massacre playing before his eyes contorting his face.

The sentry paused, squinted, watched a moment more, then said, "Le'Armont-san? This man is purposely causing chaos...."

"Obviously," Joru said, then considered. It takes a full fledged lunatic to kill for the sake killing -- except, of coarse, his dear brother. So perhaps this giant had a reason....

"Maybe this is just a distraction," the sentry said, "Maybe there's another infiltration out there, sneaking in some other way...."

And suddenly Joru thought about his brother's message. _There is at least one more little alien running around out there....._

"There _is_ another," Joru said, handing the sentry the crumpled up message from his brother, "Take these descriptions and input them into the computer. Run a scan over all the rooms of the complex and try to find a person who matched them."

"Sir."

* * *

Gohan scrambled along on his elbows down an even narrower tube, not even a foot spanned from the top to the bottom; his chin was nearly scraping against the dusty bottom. He was deeply disappointed when he had to leave the vertical shaft for this minute vent. Only one fact kept him from stopping and taking an hour or two to figure out what he would do if he happened to get stuck in here.

He was close.

Very close. Close to the chi he recognized as Freeza's. Up ahead, he saw the slit lighting of a vent that lead into the outside, open world. He would have to get out of hiding now and search in the open, where he would have more choices for where to turn. His search for Freeza and Garlic was far from over.

_Klang klang klang. _His elbows banged against the metal below him as he hurried along, suddenly grateful that he would soon be out of this cramped hole in existence.

A hard shove later, and he had rammed the grate from its frame, creating his own exit. And then he was on his way out and into an empty room. Breathing space never felt so good.

* * *

The chances were one in a thousand. As the computer scrolled over thousands of rooms and halls, flashing before Joru and the sentry's eyes perhaps three different surveillance perspectives a second, it came across the exact moment that Gohan rammed the grate off the air vent in which he hid.

"Stop it! Back it up," Joru hissed.

The sentry did thus, and they both now could see the shape of a boy climb out of the hole in the wall. A skinny boy, milky complexion, furless except for his head and tail. Dusty, filthy actually, the orange of his gi was dulled with gray dust -- no doubt from climbing around in the unclean vents. The boy paused to brush the most of the dirt off himself and pat it out of his hair.

Joru narrowed his eyes, "So that's the little rat my brother's so interested in."

The sentry glanced down at the crumpled message from Henning, "He fits the description."

The Tahch-jin and the Aeesu-jin watched as the boy looked around the room, right then left, and Joru could make out a long, red cut running down one of his cheeks. The boy looked as though he were listening to something, he turned a circle as though he saw beyond the walls to some unknown place, then dashed out the door and into the hall. He was a quick little bugger.

"Keep him in view," Joru ordered, "Get on the communicator and get some guards out there after him, we can't have this place swarming with giants _or_ children.....send word to take him alive. My brother is interested in this one."

"Sir."

The sentry started yelling into his communicator.

* * *

Bojack slammed his massive fist into three little Aeesu-jin at once. Two of them cried out, though the first to catch it was dead on impact. He grabbed one of their bodies and hurtled it across the room at another group of Aeesu-jin that came running out to greet him. Rushing to their deaths.

This was fun.

He grabbed the first to reached him by the head, slamming his face into the ground. The second, third, fourth, met his feet and knees. Oh, kami, this was easy! Aeesu-jin training didn't stand a chance against Biraju-jin might. And Bojack was strongest of the Biraju-jin.

He raised his fists high into the air, and brought them down on two of the Aeesu-jin's backs. Something crunched audibly and the two went down without a fuss. They were dropping like flies. Fifteen, twenty, thirty; when a room was cleared of life, he would smash his way through the next wall to find more. After being cooped up in that cruddy little apartment, it was nice to be out and exercising. This, he knew, was one hell of a distraction.

Only once in a while, he wondered how the kid was doing.

* * *

Gohan pelted down one hall after another, following Freeza's chi. The joy at being out of the air-shafts was short-lived, and he now felt exposed, way too out in the open for his tastes. A sitting duck. Just as he rounded another corner, he whipped his head around. He had been so fixed on a single chi he forgot to keep an eye out for others. There was another chi, very close. Someone was coming--

"Hwuuu...," before he could even comprehend what had happened, a large fist rammed up, into his stomach. He lost his wind and staggered backward, arms wrapped under his ribs. He felt some of the food he had eaten that morning try to force its way back up his throat.

From around the corner, the assailant that had struck him emerged -- a large, green Aeesu-jin with a wicked-sharp horn sticking out from the top of his head. Gohan forced himself to ignore the pain in his lower torso, swallowing the bile in the back of his mouth as he looked up at the Aeesu-jin.

He narrowed his eyes and lowered himself into a protective fighting stance, wanting to avoid getting hit in the stomach again -- this was the second time he had been punched there today. Even a Saiya-jin's intestines can take only so much abuse.

From behind the first Aeesu-jin, a second emerged. Obese, but incredibly tall -- perhaps this was what the good doctor looked like when he was a few decades younger. Behind this fat Aeesu-jin, a third appeared. Just as tall as the second, but far thinner, and horrifically muscled. And behind that one came a fourth. Then a fifth. Then a sixth.

Gohan swallowed and lowered his crouch.

* * *

"I said I wanted him in tact!" Joru raged, "My brother will be sorely disappointed if his subject is already worn down!"

"Sir, try to calm down," the Aeesu-jin sentry insisted, "From earlier reports, this boy is known to resist apprehension. They're best chance is to beat him to unconsciousness, it's that or your brother doesn't get anything at all."

Joru sighed and continued to watch.

* * *

Three Aeesu-jin, fine. Four Aeesu-jin, okay. Fighting six Aeesu-jin in closed quarters was really pushing it.

Gohan threw himself to the ground back-first, his teeth snapping involuntarily together from the impact. The Aeesu-jin that had been intending to deck him across the face went sailing over him, he looked down and his eyes met the boy's. Gohan brought his legs up and kicked the Aeesu-jin in the chest, sending him sailing upward to hit the ceiling and come crashing down nearly on top of the boy, who hardly had the time to roll aside. A second Aeesu-jin's massive foot stomped where he had been a half second earlier.

Too close.

Things were overwhelming.

Even as he flipped back to his feet he had to throw his head against his shoulder to avoid a possible broken nose. He didn't see the tail until _after_ it lashed up his from beneath him, tearing his lower gi and no doubt his leg with it. The adrenaline was too strong to feel much of anything. Kami, feet and fists were enough to reckon with! Throw tails in and it's like adding a whole new dimension to fighting!

Pivoting, dodging, blocking, jumping, and screaming, he didn't _have_ the time to retaliate -- wait, _there!!_

Ramming every amount of chi he dared into a single fist, he thrust between two other Aeesu-jin and struck a third behind them. He hit solid, breaking the Aeesu-jin's collar bone and whatever lay beneath it. The Aeesu-jin was hurtled backwards against a tiled wall, and as far as Gohan knew, didn't get back up again.

One down, five to go.

Oh, kami.

The two Aeesu-jin, between which he had attacked the third, were not going to take it easy on the boy just because he had taken one of them down. In fact, it seemed just the opposite, as both hurtled their fists at him at the same time. Gohan barely had the time to raise both arms, catching the blows on his wrists; and for it, he was still sent flying back, slamming bodily against yet another Aeesu-jin.

As luck would have it -- and luck didn't seem to have much -- Gohan had just flown shoulder-first through the Aeesu-jin's defenses. Desperate to take any advantage he could, the boy spun himself around twice to build up momentum, then raised a bent arm to slam his elbow against the Aeesu-jin's head. In the least, he would suffer brain-damage.

Delirious from the painkiller his brain was flooding him with, pumping right behind the adrenaline and the inconsistent hot-flushes of Saiya-jin battle lust, Gohan suddenly felt like he was on top of the world. He _would_ win! And suddenly he really, truly began to understand why his father and Vegita loved a good battle so much.

Never before had Gohan experienced what it was like to fight a battle that pushed him to his limits, but also gave when he pushed back. Always, it had been him against an opponent impossibly stronger than him, or impossibly weaker than him -- and Cell didn't count. But here, oh kami, _here!_ Here was what a _real_ battle was supposed to feel like. Oh, why on Earth didn't Otousan tell him about _this!?_

With a whoop of what must have been joy, he twisted his body at the hips to avoid being kicked, and arched backward to avoid the lashing tail that passed millimeters from his nose. Risking getting lashed in the arms, he reached out and grabbed the Aeesu-jin by the tail and swung him around, a full circle! Once, twice, three times around; the other Aeesu-jin backed away quickly after being hit with their comrade a few times.

Risks! He, _Gohan_, was taking risks in battle for fun; _he, _spontaneous! _Just look at me, Tousan! Look at me, Vegita! _All these years, he had been doing it wrong! It was always fight or die, fight or die, and his young mind naturally associated fighting with death -- the grimmest of subjects. And with that prospect, he had doomed himself to hesitancy, fear, hell, he thought everything to death! _If I do this, I could die, but if I do that, they could die, but with this I could kill him... _ If he had only allowed himself to flow with it, he could very well have succeeded far more in the fighting world than any other!

He released the Aeesu-jin he was swinging around, letting him collide with another, sending them both crashing through the tiled wall behind them.

Not only could he have surpassed his father's power -- he had already done that -- but his father's ability to fight! That was what made Son Goku a better fighter than Son Gohan, despite power! He _fought!_ His mind and body and instincts and heart and soul and chi all became _one!_ Mere power could never stand a chance against that!

_This_ was what his father ment when he said that power wasn't everything. Power was only the means to release the real root of the fighting spirit.

Without hesitation, Gohan dove after another Aeesu-jin, twisting his body to dodge a stray chi blast. In one on one fighting against these Aeesu-jin, they stood no chance. And for a split second, he considered not trying to take them out, considered allowing all remaining four of them to continue their attacks on him until they couldn't fight anymore......

But somewhere in the back of his head, human Gohan whispered into the ear of Saiya-jin Gohan not to make the same mistake he had seen his father and Vegita make so many times before. Giving the enemy even half a chance could endanger everyone and everything.

Gritting his teeth, he rammed his knee into the Aeesu-jin's chin, hearing something snap, be it a jaw, a nose, a vertibre or whatever. It didn't matter. He had to end this. Using his chi, he flung himself over the Aeesu-jin he had just kneed in a half flip, stopping himself half way so that he was upside down. Through his legs, he saw another Aeesu-jin charging after him. So close, so very close. Gohan reversed his paused flip back the way he came, slamming his knees against the charging Aeesu-jin's shoulders, stopping him cold.

Something in the hit had been lethal, whether sheer force or striking a vulnerable spot, but the Aeesu-jin went down, and went down hard.

In the few seconds of silence after the sixth Aeesu-jin had fallen, Gohan settled back to the ground, his boots making a light _tmp_ as he landed. He looked around, at all the bodies strewn across the tiles, and felt no regret. They had come after him, faught, and lost. If they had retreated, he wouldn't have persued them; in the brief moment of battle rush, he only wanted to face those with a fighting spirit. It had accually been exilerating, if not fun.

Still, he did not allow himself to smile as he surveyed his downed opponents. He accually sighed, feeling saddened by something he couldn't quite recognize. Grief that he had killed again, or that the fight was over?

From one of the shattered walls behind him, bursting up from under a pile of tiles and rubble, a surviving Aeesu-jin suddenly emerged. With a scream, the Aeesu-jin launched himself at Gohan, ready to fight again.

Gohan had had enough fighting at the moment, he had alot to think about. Fighting a single Aeesu-jin one on one was nothing. Face a placid, unreadable mask, he slammed his elbow into his fruitless attackers face, breaking his nose and rendering him unconscious.

Picking his way over the limp shapes of six Aeesu-jin, careful not to step on any of the bodies, Gohan started to run. He still had a mission amoung many to complete.

* * *

Even after the boy vanished from their point of view, neither Joru or the sentry seated beneath him made any immediate moves to follow him visually.

They were shell-shocked, through and through.

The sentry noisily licked his lips, "He... he just... "

Though he was slow to respond, Joru regained himself quickly as he realized they no longer watching the boy -- meaning, they no longer knew where he was.

"Where is he!?" the Tahch-jin yelled for perhaps the first time in his life.

"He's....," the sentry's eyes flashed over multiple surveillance perspectives, "He's....," All seeming to turn up nothing but empty halls and rooms, occasionally catching a glimpse of a brown tail tip, or a black boot heel as the boy moved from place to place too fast for the sentry or the computer to keep up with. "He's....." and finally, an image popped up. In it, the boy was charging down a narrow hall, and before their very eyes, the boy launched himself into the air in an extremely potent looking kick, his foot aimed at a door which he obviously intended to open with force.

The expression on his face spoke all too clearly that he was through sneaking around.

"Where is that?" Joru barked. The sentry glanced down at his data. He sweated.

A sudden, violent explosion rocked the room as the entire west wall blew inward, showering the Tahch-jin and the Aeesu-jin with clumps of debris.

"What the-" Joru yelled, but could find no means to word his question.

"He's here," the sentry said, slowly rising from his chair.

Joru doggedly scrambled to the other side of the room where he kept his chi gun. The sentry, his Aeesu-jin pride unable to stand being intimidated by an alien child any further, went the opposite direction -- toward the destroyed wall. He vanished into the rising dust. Joru didn't look behind him. He had a feeling the fight would be brief; either the child was really as inconceivably strong as he appeared, in which case he would take out the sentry as easily as he had the others, or he was somehow just really lucky to have gotten as far as he had and would be crushed by the sentry in a matter of seconds.

There was a loud crash, the boy and the sentry both yelled. Joru grabbed hold of his chi gun and turned around in time to see the sentry, limp as a rag doll, fall forward from the dust cloud and land painfully on his side. Joru didn't know if he was alive, though it didn't particularly matter. He was an Aeesu-jin, after all, and they were evil.

Further thought on the topic became out of the question, as the dust slowly settled, revealing -- at first -- a dark silhouette, then, slowly, color and substance seeped into the image, and thirty feet from where Joru stood, was Son Gohan.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Joru felt stark terror. _Henning, brother, save me!_ If, wherever he was, the other Tahch-jin heard his silent plea, he didn't answer.

The man and the boy stare at each other in the silence that filled the room. The cold air that rushed out of the air vent above them was loud, rudely disrupting the mood. Joru was trembling. Trembling like a child. But not this child. No, this child was the very image of fearlessness; hesitation could not be found in him. When the Tahch-jin looked into the boy's coal-black eyes, he saw something altogether alive. Glittering. The last remainders of dust in the air wispted over the boy's face and reflected in his large eyes.

As irrational as it seemed, though he felt surely his death was seconds away at the hands of a child, something in the back of his mind -- or was it his heart? -- didn't think he should fear the child. Those cold, impenetrable eyes seemed to glitter, and shine with intelligence. And laugh. If the light hit his eyes right, they laughed.

Though Joru had always been an excellent judge in character by merely looking people in the eyes, he felt surely he was wrong with what he beheld in this boy's soul. He was a killer. Had to be. His laughing, twinkling eyes were just an illusion, meant to lull his victims into a false sense of security to make the kill all too easy.

With a shaky hand, Joru raised his hand, pointing his chi gun ahead, aiming between the boy's eyes. Both of them knew it would do no good.

"My name," Joru said, clenching his teeth to keep them from shattering, " is Joru Le'Armont. Who are you and what do you want?"

The boy blinked, slowly, measuring, "I am Son Gohan. You have two people being held here. I want them released."

"I can't do that," Joru said, slowly lowering his weapon; he didn't want so seem threatening, "They're not mine to release. They're my brother's."

Something within the boy seemed to be conflicting, he was trying to decide what to do next, "Where are they?"

Joru couldn't take it. Though he couldn't sense chi, the boy's power was strong on a physical sense -- Joru's fur was standing on end, waving in the air as though he were underwater. Everything seemed full of static, when the Tahch-jin rubbed his hands together, bright sparks of static leapt from his palms. Just how strong was this kid? This was enough!

Joru raised his weapon, "You can't just come in here ordering me around, kid!"

The boy watched him, calculated, thought. It was strange, but though there seemed to be no hesitation in him, this kid, this Son Gohan, didn't seem to have any real plan at all. He was just making it up as he went along; a strategy that seemed to work well for him.

"Look," the boy said finally, "I don't really need you to tell me anything. I can find them both on my own, but if you shouldn't challenge me because I don't really want to have to kill you."

Hesitation. Joru was swelling with hesitation. Should he try to kill the kid? Should he give up and cooperate? Should he remain stubborn and argue? Should he stall the kid until help arrived? No, help probably wouldn't arrive--he had sent his sentries off to fight that blue giant. They were probably dead by now. There would be no help.

Gohan studied the man's face. This alien -- Le'Armont? -- was afraid. So afraid he was shaking, sweating, kami, Gohan could accually smell his fear. Though he was coming to terms with his fighting nature, he knew he never would or could want people to tremble at his feet.

"You're a Tahch-jin...right?"

Joru blinked in surprise at the question, "What?"

"I heard about some aliens called Tahch-jin on the planet. You're one, right?"

Joru narrowed his eyes, "The Tahch-jin are the most advanced people in the universe, we have no equals. Yes, I am a Tahch-jin, you will regret insulting us like this."

Gohan nodded, as though he understood something. He turned, and started to leave the room, "I have nothing more to say to you," he said to Joru, "Despite what you must think of me, I'm not a killer. I don't want to have to kill you, or anyone else, but I will if you try to stop me. Don't let your dignity get in the way of your judgment, because I've seen people's pride kill them just as surely as a blast of chi. The Tahch-jin may be a great people, but if they were that greatest, you wouln't be shaking like that."

It was more of an insult to Joru than Gohan had intended it to be. With sudden, speratic rage at his wounded dignity, the wounded dignity of his people, he raised his chi gun and pulled off three rounds into the boy's back.

Gohan didn't turn around or even stop walking. Two shots hit him in the back of his shoulders and bounced off harmlessly. The third shot grazed by his ear, burning off some of his hair. He didn't flinch. Once he was out of the room, he reached out for Freeza's chi, locked onto it, and started running again.

Joru Le'Armont glared after him.

* * *

_So... that was a Tahch-jin._

Strange, but Gohan found he wasn't interested in the man's people at all. He had been fascinated with the Aeesu-jin's culture, fascinated with the Nameksei-jin culture. He had hounded his father to tell him more about the people he met when he was supposedly lost in space, and had even, on rare occasion, tried to find out more about the Saiya-jin culture with carefully worded questions from Vegita.

But he wasn't interested in the Tahch-jin. He had seen them before, in other people. Seen their pride and dignity too much in the Aeesu-jins and Saiya-jins. It was getting redundant. Did every alien species think they were better than the rest? The Nameksei-jin didn't seem to. Earthlings, Chikyuusei-jin, didn't, though perhaps they would if they actually knew aliens existed.

Gohan continued to bite his lip as he ran, thinking that perhaps all people were a little screwed up in their way of thinking in the end. It was kind of depressing.

* * *

"What's going on, now?" Freeza asked as he tenderly rubbed the deep purple bruise on his arm. Those other damn Aeesu-jin didn't have to hit him _that_ hard.

"Bojack is still running around killing Aeesu-jin," Garlic said, his eyes closed to get a better view of the chi swirling around him, "But I can't feel the kid anymore. After he took out those six Aeesu-jin his chi went back down. It's impossible to detect."

Freeza ground his teeth together, "Why do you Earthlings hide your chi even when you're not trying to hide?"

Garlic ran his finger along the gash on his head in thought, "Habit more than anything. It's just something we normally do."

Freeza swirled his tail behind him, allowing himself to sink into the foulest of moods. He did _not_ like being pushed around, confined, abused, mocked and everything else he had to endure since being captured.

In his sudden rise of anger, he struck the bars that lined his and Garlic's cell with his fist as hard as he could. Though the bar didn't bend -- it was _meant_ to keep people possessing Aeesu-jin strength retained -- it did fill the cell and the room it was in with a long, sad ringing sound. Flinching and squeezing his eyes shut Garlic yelled, "Must you do that!? Do you have any idea how sensitive these ears are? Ung, I think my heads about to explode."

Feeling almost smug despite his predicament, Freeza grinned. At least he hurt _someone_.

Suddenly, the door to their cell burst inward, and the limp form of their Aeesu-jin guard came skidding to a stop at Freeza's feet.

Garlic and Freeza looked up in alarm as Son Gohan entered the cell behind the guard. Except a few bruises on his arms and face, and a long tear that spanned his pant-leg (there was some bleeding here), he was virtually unharmed. His hair was wild, wilder than it looked before, his tail swept behind him in a dramatic arc, and his eyes gleamed with intensity; the boy was out of breath but seemed full of spirit. He looked more warrior-esk than he ever had before. Now, Freeza recognized, he really looked like a Saiya-jin.

"I thought if I looked for Freeza's chi I'd find Garlic," Gohan seemed to say to himself more than either of them; then, addressing Freeza he said, "Good thing you don't know how to hide your chi, or things would be alot harder."

By now, Freeza and Garlic had regained their composure.

"'Bout time you came," Garlic said, and with that he walked almost haughtily out of the cell. Freeza followed without a comment.

Still standing in the cell, regaining his breath, Gohan stared after them with wide-eyes. He had been around prideful people like Vegita enough to know they never showed gratitude. Still, every single flaming time he expected a 'thank you.'

With a final intake of air, he exited the cell, aware he would probably have to do all the fighting if they were attacked again.

Life really was just chocked full of dissapointments.

**To be continued............**

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	14. CM14

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 14**

Bojack, Son Gohan, Freeza and Garlic half-walked, half-ran out of the Tahch-jin prison/fortress. Panting, they stopped once they had passed through the hole Bojack had torn in the entrance and turned to look behind them. They watched for a moment, waited to see if they were being pursued. No one came after them; from within, neither Gohan or Garlic could feel more than a handful of living beings within a hundred feet. Despite, Bojack raised his hand and blasted a bright, golden ball of chi in through the entrance.

As they started walking back to Sunow's home, the complex began to explode behind them. Once Bojack's blast detonated, it had caused a chain reaction, causing the circuits in the complex to reach meltdown and explode. One after another they sounded off as they blew.

_Boom! B-boom! Krrrr....BOOM!_

None of them looked back. Bojack chuckled in an almost giddy way. Garlic scowled. Freeza smirked. Gohan's face was unreadable.

Not counting the three he had fought at Backlash, or the four he had fought while getting Forester and Eesei at school, or the eight he fought while on his way to rescue Freeza and Garlic, Gohan had killed or maimed thirteen Aeesu-jin, all along their escape.

Twenty-eight Aeesu-jin in all.

Bojack had killed fifty-six.

In all, there was a bloody body count of eighty-four. A mass-murder far greater than any Gohan had ever participated in, nearly a hundred people dead in one day. Strangely, he only numbly felt the guilt and self-loathing he usually did after killing. It was a dull ache in the back of his mind, a sharp edge jabbing him from somewhere deep in his cloudy subconscious.

And yet, on a different scale, one far clearer and more rational and somehow more ruthless, it was somehow justified. Tousan would understand. He had killed off the entire Red Ribbon army, hadn't he? There were more than eighty-four people in the Red Ribbon army. There were hundreds. Thousands. Yes, Tousan would understand if he were here. Piccolo-san would understand, too. The cause _did_ justify the means, or so argued half of Gohan's mind.

Kuririn wouldn't have understood, though. Or Yamcha. Choutzu, Tenshinhan, Muten Roshi-sama. They wouldn't have understood at all. His mother, Okasan, would never have understood. The Earthlings, all in all, wouldn't. Was it just the Earthling nature to not be quite as good at comprehending and accepting death? Piccolo-san, Tousan, and Vegita-san seemed far more capable in that respect.

Strange. Was it upbringing or hereditary? Both Piccolo and Son Goku had been raised on Earth, never known anything other than what the other Earthlings knew. Were Saiya-jins and Nameksei-jins naturally born with a keener knowledge of life and death, just as they were born with a keener fighting sense and ability to manipulate chi?

Gohan didn't know. At the moment, his Saiya-jin instincts were flaring like they never had before, he wasn't sure whether he _was_ Earthling _or_ Saiya-jin or something all together different. Somewhere, lurking in the shadows of his conscious, he felt regret. Given the time and peace of mind to think about it, he probably would feel ashamed. Not yet, though. Like so many things, it was not the time to think about it. Action. A time of action.

A warm wetness that struck his arm informed him that his cheek was bleeding again.

This whole fiasco, as enlightening as it was, sucked.

The four of them -- the original four that had arrived on Aeesu-sei together -- did not attempt to communicate as they walked. Neither Freeza or Garlic asked how Gohan and Bojack had found out they were taken prisoner. Neither Bojack or Gohan asked why they had allowed themselves to be taken. Conversation was the last thing they needed at the moment, especially with each other.

As Gohan mentally counted down the turns it would take to get to Sunow's, he planned out what he would do when he got there. A long, cold drink of water. Ice water. Then a bath. A warm one. He would scrub away all the blood, both his and the Aeesu-jin's, then tend to the ache in his side that he feared might be a cracked rib. He hoped it wasn't; he couldn't afford to be seriously injured in this situation.

He purposely walked with his shoulders swept back and his long brown tail lashing confidently behind him; broken rib or not, he couldn't allow these three to know he was hurt. He just couldn't.

3......2........1..... the number of turns went.

And they were there. Sunow's welcoming door was just ahead, and relief was lapping at Gohan's tensions, wearing away at it like wind on a rock. Given time and security, Gohan knew he would be able to handle this insane, overwhelming task. Somehow. A warm bath........

The door _swished_d open for them and Gohan, in the lead, entered with a weary smile. Strange how he was already starting to consider Sunow's apartment as _home_. He was home. Not the home he'd like to be in, but it was still close, and that was all the luxory he could afford. Home.

"Son Gohan!" Sunow's voice--though normally possessing the trademark Aeesu-calm--was shrill and loud, grating on the Saiya-jin boy's ears, "Thank Heng you're back! There is an urgent call to you from Dr. Koda! He's been waiting to talk to you since you left!"

Gohan blinked as his mind jumped from zero to sixty in two seconds, "The doctor called?"

"Is calling, er, waiting."

"Where?"

Sunow, though limping heavily and favoring one arm, seemed pretty much recovered since Gohan had brought him home, strong and resilient. The Aeesu-jin were a warrior people like the Saiya-jin, Gohan supposed. Still in a daze from all he had to soak up in a single day, Gohan allowed Sunow to lead him across the room to the computer console. Bojack, Freeza and Garlic lingered behind them, curious despite themselves.

Sunow asked his computer, "Is Dr. Koda still on the line?"

"Dr. Koda is," the neutral computer voice answered.

"On screen," Sunow took hold of Gohan's shoulders, positioning him in front of the screen as it blinked to life, displaying the good doctor as he talking to someone they couldn't see.

"....and so I told him -- Son Gohan!" The doctor took note of the boy, "There you are! Where did you go after you left my office? I thought you would go straight home so I could contact you......is that blood on your cheek? Good kami what happened? ."

"I was...," Gohan paused, covering the cut with his palm. _I was attacking Backlash headquarters? Breaking into the top-secret Tahch-jin base?_

"Never mind, this is too important for excuses. I've managed to get ahold of you, so all is not lost. Do you remember before you left my office? I told you I would try to get a hearing with Heng so you could inform him of the threat to our planet."

"Damn brat must have told everyone he met -- uff!" Freeza started to mumble before Bojack elbowed him in the stomach so he could hear what was being said.

"As soon as you left," the doctor continued, "I pulled every string I had to contact Heng immediately. I got through and told them there was a crisis. Since I have some sway, they listened to my words and want to speak with you right away. If there is a threat, they want to know about it."

"Right, I understand," Gohan said, rubbing a hand along the back of his neck.

"Good, come to my office immediately; we mustn't keep Heng waiting."

The screen went blank, Gohan barely clamped his teeth down on the moan climbing up his throat, "He wants me to go, _now_?"

"Yes, this is _Heng_ we're talking about!" Sunow said and started to lead him back across the room to the door, "I didn't know it was _this _important....oh, dear, oh, dear...."

His mind in an incooperational blank, Gohan could only sputter, "Wait, I....."

"Hold it," Freeza said, "You're not seriously thinking whoever, or whatever Heng is, they'll take the word of a boy are you?"

Sunow paused from shoving Gohan out the door, "What are you suggesting?"

"I'm going, too," Freeza said, lifting his chin, daring the other to challenge him, "There isn't an Aeesu-jin alive that hasn't wondered what Heng was. Besides, chances are an off-planet Aeesu-jin will be easier to listen to than a little alien boy."

Sunow hesitated, considered, answered, "I have no say in what you can and can't do, but are you aware of the risks--"

"Risks?" Bojack interjected, "What sort of risks?"

Sunow forced his mind to weed fantasy stories of awesome, immortal power and raw energy he learned as a child from the facts he had dug up during his bouts off free time and curiosity, "Heng, supposedly, has over five million Aeesu-jin at his (or its) beck and call day and night; I'm not just talking about the average trainee. From what I've dug up, these could be Aeesu-jin bred for power and cunning -- generations of superpowered giants striking death to all that defy them.......or so they say. Not even I know everything, but caution is something one should stress in this situation."

"I'm going," Bojack said, "That bozu seems to magnetize trouble everywhere he goes, and I don't want to suddenly drop dead just because he was being stupid."

Sunow gaped at him, then turned his head to look at Garlic, as though expecting the gremlin to suddenly pipe in and say that he, too, wished to go. Garlic said nothing.

Swallowing whatever argument he might have, Sunow answered, "Like I said, I have no say in what you do. But go now, Heng is waiting."

Gohan left the apartment first without a word, Freeza following behind him and Bojack last.

Looks like a warm bath was, once again, out of the question. When Gohan swallowed a lump of emotion in his throat -- he wasn't sure if it was fear, anxiety, anger, annoyance, disappointment or something else -- his throat felt scratchy. He wished he had at least paused for a sip of water before he left.

* * *

The doctor paced nervously back and forth before the entrance to his office after releasing his secretary early, anxiously awaiting the arrival of Son Gohan. In truth, he had only personally met Heng on two occasions, and even then he wasn't sure it was the real guy. There were probably hundreds of decoys meant to represent the real one to avoid assassination attempts, especially in this time of turmoil.

Now that he had everything set up, he started to feel doubt. Not so much doubt as about Gohan's story -- that boy certainly looked like he was telling the truth; the doctor was an excellent judge of that -- but would Heng believe him? After getting to know the boy, it was obvious that he had an honest heart, but what if Heng couldn't see that? What if he was accused of lying and wasting their time, or worse, what if they thought the boy was mad and confined him to an asylum......or simply killed him?

The doctor blew air out his lips, too many bridges to cross; it would probably be smart to not start counting them.

The door opened, and the _swish_ sound that went with it sent a shock of adrenaline up his body, making him realize just how edgy he was. In the door way stood the awaited Son Gohan.......and behind him stood the unawaited Freeza and....what was that other guy's name?

"I got here as soon as I could," Gohan said as he straightened one of his armbands.

The doctor looked him up and down. One of his pant-legs was torn wide open, the edges slightly stained by blood that was obviously his own. Though the rest of his clothes were pretty much in tact, there were worn looking, dog-eared and stained with blood -- Aeesu-jin blood, the doctor recognized with horror. His hair was even wilder than it was before, though the doctor didn't know much about hair behavior patters. And of coarse there was the gash on his cheek.

"I don't know what happened, but I can only say you look like a ragamuffin. Son Gohan, what _went on _after you left here?"

The boy tugged nervously at the hem of his gi, straightened his belt, curled his tail around his hip and fingered its tip nervously, "A lot of things.....but it would take a while to explain. Heng is waiting, isn't it?"

The doctor crossed his arms, looking at the boy skeptically. His years of experience listening to student's excuses for why their homework wasn't done, years of listening to why fat patriots didn't take their vitamin supplements, years of listening to why his secretaries were late for work; _none_ of this experience was exercised to see this kid was either lying, or hiding something probably bad if not illegal.

The Aeesu-jin blood splattered on his gi was an unpleasant hint about the latter. Dr. Koda could only hope it was self-defense.

"Son Gohan, come into my office for a moment. I have a sink in there, you can wash up -- cleanliness is important among Aeesu-jin. You two wait out here, we'll be back out in a few minutes. Be ready so we can leave immediately."

Freeza and Bojack nodded minutely to him -- for some odd reason taking orders from this particular man didn't seem to compromise their pride. He just seemed so....genial.

Gohan and the doctor vanished into the back room; at a last glance, Bojack watched the last few inches of Gohan's tail vanish, and the door close behind him.

*

Inside, Gohan quietly crossed the room, rounded around the patient's chair, and turned the water on in the sink. Holding his hand under the running water until it almost felt hot enough to almost burn the skin, Gohan turned back to the doctor, "Do you have a washcloth I can use?"

"I'm sure I have something," the doctor said, rummaging through a drawer and pulling out a roll of gauze, "Will this work?"

"Yeah," the boy took it.

The doctor leaned against the counter, his arms crossed over his paunchy stomach and watched quietly for a while as Gohan carefully wetted the gauze and started blotting at some of the larger spots on the front of his gi, scrubbing at them until the dried blood moistened again and began to stained the white material.

"Some fight, huh?" The doctor commented pointedly.

The boy looked up from his task, caught the look the doctor was giving him, looked down at the running water a moment, darted a look at the doctor again from the corner of his eye and started wringing out the wet gauze. His tail seemed alive and wild, coiling around his thigh and hip like a snake then uncoiling and doubling and tripling over itself in perplexed knots.

"It was nothing."

The doctor sighed, another truth evasion. To him, it was nearly as bad as lying, "Son Gohan, I trusted your word about the threat to this planet, I believed you to the point that I actually dragged Heng, _Heng_, into this. I want to trust you very much but the only way for me to do that is if you tell me the truth."

"The truth is.....," Gohan said, "The truth is that the Aeesu-jin people as a whole seem to hate aliens like me for no other reason than that I'm different. Ethnocentrism. Bigotry. Racism. I've seen it before, it happens on my planet, too, but it's never really happened to me before." _That's right, draw attention away from the real problem with a different one._ "I was attacked because they thought I did something I didn't."

The doctor didn't say anything as he studied the boy up and down, taking note of the evident damage the fight had left.

"Son Gohan, I know you have good intentions and high hopes. Your daring intelligence in this warrior's world is commendable, but even I have to admit that it's doubtful that you, a mere Saiya-jin boy, could hurt any Aeesu-jin. Our kind is naturally incredibly strong."

Gohan didn't say anything as his devoted his attention to washing the blood off his face and neck; some of it was his, some of it wasn't. Kami, he didn't remember there being _this much_ blood squirting off the Aeesu-jin when he fought them. Evidence, remains, reminders.....he was glad to wash it off.

"But obviously, somehow you've managed to hurt at least one of them to the point of bleeding, while you remain nearly unscratched. Son Gohan, tell me another story, a true one. Tell me how you managed to attain your kind of power at your tender age?"

There was an audible _snap_ that filled the room as Gohan's tail involuntarily cracked like a whip. Gohan knealt down and started washing the crusty, oozy, dark-red off of his gashed leg. He was breathing through his teeth in deep thought, "I've been in......hopeless fighting situations before. A lot of them. Some came unexpectedly, but a surprising number I knew were coming from years in advance."

The doctor stroked his chin in thought.

"Alot of the time it really seemed like there was simply no way to win, where you feel like you only have a year left to live and you should just try to enjoy it while you can," he untucked his pantleg from his boot, then retucked it in, trying to fold and crease it to hide the tear that ran up to his knee. It was still evident, but not nearly as bad as before, "But I guess we just couldn't accept it. If we even had just a week, we would put our very lives on the line to try to get strong enough to survive. Strange as it is, it's worked so far....more or less. Some of us always survive."

The doctor opened his mouth and asked, "Who's 'we'?"

Gohan gnawed at a piece of loose skin on his lip, "My friends and father."

The doctor caught the momentary flash of pain that crossed the boy's eyes at the mention of the latter, "Where is your father, now?"

"Dead."

And the weight of that one word was enough to end the conversation.

"Well, I suppose you look as good as you're going to wearing those clothes," the doctor said as he watched Gohan stand up straight again. With his tail lashing behind him and his tuffy, wild hair haloing above him, he was nearly the very image of vitality, strength and youth, except......"When we get back I want to put some stitches in that facial wound, it looks deep. I want to look at your leg, too."

"I think there's something wrong with my side, too," Gohan caught himself adding. He hadn't intended to tell anyone that he was hurt, why had he been blurting things out so much lately?

The doctors eyes narrowed with concern and he said, "Hold still for a second."

Gohan did as he was told, even when the Aeesu-jin doctor approached him and started gently probing his ribcage with his long white fingers. There were few things that really bothered Gohan.....but he was extremely possessive about his personal space. Since the age of four he nearly always found that physical contact lead to pain; years of such association resulted in heavy hesitancy to allow anyone but the most trusted of people to accually lay a hand on him in any significant way. He just barely kept himself from shying away from the goodly-intentioned doctor and holding his side protectively.

But it was a childish notion and he would not allow himself to behave juvanily; his mother had taught him better than that. Still, he closed his eyes to avoid having to see the large Aeesu-jin body so close to him. It didn't matter, he still felt him. He felt like a caged animal.

Of coarse, the doctor could see all this written across the boy's face. With his face scrunched in expectation and his eyes squeezed so tightly together that they were watering; his little body was trembling slightly with subconscience fear, as though he were expecting something horrible to happen to him. The doctor had seen it before, surprisingly it was most evident in the Saiya-jin children he evaluated. Though Son Gohan was a great, sophisicated cry from the primitive little brutes that came in each week, he still seemed to retain some of their natural instincts, one being, namely, clausterphobia.

Gohan winced when the doctor's hand found the sore spot on his side, and as much as he tried to control himself, he instinctively pulled away and backed up a few feet.

"Son Gohan, you have a cracked rib and heavy bruising. You shouldn't be up and walking around in your condition. I'll call Heng and cancel the meeting. They won't be happy, but you should let me tend to those right away before you worsen your condition."

"No, I'm fine. Really. I heal pretty fast, and I've been through worse before and had to endure it for way longer. Don't cancel."

The good doctor pushed his lips into a thin line. He didn't like this, "Do you promise you'll let me take a better look at your side when we get back?"

Gohan hesitated, "I might be pretty much healed by then."

"That does't matter, I still want to check for internal injuries."

Time was wasting, and Gohan could almost hear the sound of ticking as he finally said, ".....alright."

"Good," the doctor said with a nod, "Now let's go."

* * *

By the time Henning Le'Armont made his way through the rubble that used to be his main office, most of the wounded Aeesu-jin had already been taken to emergency rooms, while the dead had been carted out in little black bags. Pushing his way past two Aeesu-jin medics, Henning started to shout.

"Out of my way. Where is my brother? Joru, where are you!?"

It didn't take long before he was pointed into the right direction, a small room off to the side. Within, Joru Le'Armont sat in a large chair, talking to an Aeesu-jin homicide detective. He continuously wrung his hands together, so hard that he had already developed a slight bald patch on his knuckles and inner palms -- the fur simply rubbed away.

"....and then the kid left. Just like that -- brother!"

Joru leapt to his feet in sheer joy at seeing his brother again; he always felt so vulnerable when his tougher sibling was missing, "Where were you? Do you know what happened? Oh, kami, it was terrible!"

Not knowing everything that had happened, but feeling slightly disturbed by his normally composed brother ranting like a maniac, Henning asked, "Did you get what happened on record?"

Grasping at his nerves after his close encounter, Joru nodded, "I got it all. The detectives are studying it now, but I made a copy so you could see in private as soon as you arrived."

"Uh, Le'Armont-san?" The homicide detective asked from behind them, "I need a statement and any other information you might have on these four perpetrators."

"Later," Joru said, ushering him out the door, "I have to update my brother. Go watch the recording with the others."

He shoved the Aeesu-jin out the door and closed it behind him. Leaning his back against the door, he turned to face Henning.

"Show me the recording," Henning said.

* * *

Gohan thought he looked familiar, though in an odd way. And right on the heels of that first thought came the second. He looked like the old, giant Nameksei-jin elder he met when he was five. His face was lined with age, and he was indeed huge. Bigger than the Namek elder, perhaps. And fat. Life must have been good to him, for from the point where his brow hung heavily over his eyes, he was nothing but rolls of skin. Under his heavily lidded eyes, rolls of bags spanned down his cheeks. Deep lines traced down his chin from the corners of his mouth. His cheeks sagged down on either side of his neck, while under his chin the rolls vanished under a thick, purple robe.

Yes, very much like the Nameksei-jin elder. But colder.

In fact, his chi was downright chilling. Cold and calculated and nearly unreadable, he sat on a huge throne with his huge, droopy tail hanging over one arm, surrounded by perhaps six other Aeesu-jin, all of which were larger than Gohan had ever seen them, though not nearly as large as _he_ was. They were perhaps twice the size of Bojack, while _he_ was nearly the size of an oozaru.

It was Heng. Though Gohan didn't know if the huge Aeesu-jin in the middle was Heng, or all of them together were. Either way, they were inconceivable strong, and impossibly large, and Gohan suddenly felt horrifically dwarfed by them and longed for his Super Saiya-jin form. Their combined power actually sent a chill of fear down his spine. Real, hard-core fear. He hadn't felt that in years.

**To be continued.....**

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	15. CM15

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 15**

After revealing nearly half an hour of gory footage and summing up Gohan and Bojack's raid on the Tahch-jin fortress, the monitor went blank, casting the room into temporary darkness. Joru turned on the lights and looked to his brother, who had remained silent and still throughout the viewing.

"Brother?"

Henning didn't reply as he rubbed a hand against the back of his neck. He gave a quiet sigh, scratched at his jaw, inspected his fingernails, then asked, "Is there anything you want to add to what we've just seen?"

Joru crossed his arms and looked helplessly at the ground, "There's something strange about that kid. I can't place it, but if you were to meet him in person..... there's just something very odd."

Henning could only watch as his normally articulate brother struggled with words. Few things could frighten a Tahch-jin, and though Joru was handling himself well he was still shaking and wringing his hands together with anxiety, "What do you mean, odd?"

The other looked up at the ceiling, staring at the shining halogen light above them in thought. "His eyes. They didn't look like someone who had just killed six people, like a person who killed people at all. If I were to meet him outside a fighting situation I just.... wouldn't.... see it."

"Would you see it in me?"

"You're a Tahch-jin. None of _us_ look evil, but..... that kid just didn't _look_ like he should be fighting."

Henning looked back at the blank monitor, "How can you say that after witnessing even half of what he did? He certainly seemed capable of damage."

"No, I mean his eyes--"

"Stop right there," Henning ordered. Joru became silent as his brother circled him, looking at him from all angles, "You've always had a knack for seeing things in people that I can't. It's been infuriating at times, especially when you end up being right. At the moment, however, even you know you're wrong. You say he doesn't look like a cold-blooded killer, but he's obviously killed many times before. You say he looks like he shouldn't be fighting, but I won't lie when I say I he's probably one of the best fighters I've ever seen......except for that other blue guy with him. Brother, what do you see in this boy's eyes? Use only one word."

Joru took this into mind deeply. He hated misusing a word, and when it came down to describing something with but one, it was a task not to be taken lightly. Finally, it came.

"Life. I saw life."

Henning nodded, "I want to find this boy."

* * *

The room was huge, ornate, and gleaming. It was actually the first Aeesu-jin complex Gohan had seen that had any notable frills to it, so the first sight of it left him stunned. The ceiling must have been at least fifty feet above their heads and domed in the center; every inch of it decked in intricate moldings, sculptures, dental work, and carvings. The light was a soft yellow, coming from hard to see low-watt bulbs hidden strategically behind certain statues to make incredible emphasis and dramatic shadows. The statues and carvings themselves each depicted sleek, long-limbed Aeesu-jin; fighting, or sitting, or running or simply standing quietly as they looked down into the room.

The walls of the room were lined with thick, impressive pillars that erupted from huge, marble bases, spanning all the way up to the ceiling where they curved and slanted along it's dome until they all met in the very center of the ceiling. Even the very floor Gohan walked on was impressive. A soft, milky mother of peal; so well polished one could make out the shapes of the statues in the ceiling if they were to look down.

The warm, yellow lighting was extremely deceptive; the temperatures must have been somewhere in the negative teens. By now, however, Gohan was pretty much used to the cold. It wasn't nearly as bad as the Room of Spirit and Time, after all.

What _was_ troubling Gohan, however, was the _living_ things in the room.

Standing in the center of the far wall has a preposterously sized throne, nearly twenty feet tall, carved from some finely grained, dark-tinted wood. Everything about it was extravagantly detailed, trails of leaves and plants, some kind of small round fruit, hintings at different body parts and sleek, flying birds were depicted in such a realistic detail that Gohan could swear he would be able to pluck the very leaves right from it and they would be soft as rose petals.

And sitting in the throne was Heng.

He was huge, ridiculously huge. Large and plump and round, he was nearly the size of an oozaru, and somehow, though he looked like nothing but rolls of skin, his persona felt just as fierce. Even if he couldn't feel chi, Gohan knew he would be just as intimidated. And the Aeesu-jin Heng certainly had a substantial chi. Too large. In his present, untransformable state, Gohan didn't think he would win in a fight. It was a very disturbing realization to the boy.

And sitting three to the left, and three to the right of Heng, were six of the largest Aeesu-jin Gohan had ever seen, only small in comparison to Heng himself, ranging from twice to three times the size of Bojack. As his heart gave a slight exceleration, Gohan started to feel a pinch of pain in his side. His ribs weren't going to get better anytime soon. Broken and cracked bones took up to a few days to a few weeks to heal, thanks be to his Saiya-jin heritage. But none of his healing abilities were going to help him now.

"Good evening, gentlemen. I must say I'm grateful you all took the time to meet with me today," the doctor said, "I assure you it's of the utmost importance."

He paused to clear his mind, planning out and sorting his words to best present the crisis at hand. Heng and his six secretaries waited, their eyes narrowed, looking for all the world like a row of giant vultures watching a dying animal. Not an encouraging audience for the doctor, who was already nervous. Unable to finding a more appropriate coarse of action, he thought perhaps it would be best to simply out and say it.

Taking a breath, he continued, "It has come to my attention that this very planet is in immediate danger of destruction."

He paused again, looked around for his listener's reaction. And then, a dark yellow Aeesu-jin spoke.

"Are you insane?"

Of all the reactions he was expecting, this was not one the doctor had foreseen, "What?"

A second giant Aeesu-jin spoke, "This must be some sort of joke, Doctor Koda must be testing out how much he can get away with. Testing his boundaries or something."

"No, you're not-"

"Doctor Koda, for nearly two decades now we have trusted you alone with the responsibility of seeing to our own medical needs," the yellow Aeesu-jin said.

"To abuse your position in this manner-" a green Aeesu-jin said, but was interrupted by the yellow again.

"We didn't even question you when you entered into his holy ground with an _off-planet_ and two _aliens_!"

"You're not listening to me." The doctor used his most authoritative voice, "This is no joke. I am completely serious."

The Aeesu-jin all looked at him in silence for a moment, and though most of their faces were unreadable, at least two of them looked genuinely shocked.

One of the largest Aeesu-jin -- a blue and green one with a deep, calculated voice -- said, "You actually believe what you're saying, don't you?"

More than three other Aeesu-jin drew their breath to add their own opinion in, but the blue Aeesu-jin spoke again.

"Where did you get this information from?"

Gohan opened his mouth to answer the question -- it had, after all, involved him on a first hand basis. His words caught in his throat, however, when the doctor's entire body suddenly began to signal wildly to him. Though he hardly tilted his head, Gohan caught the doctor's eye, and ceased his attempt to speak. For whatever reason, the other obviously seemed to think it would be best if Gohan stayed quiet for the moment.

"Yesterday morning, three aliens were sent to me for standard inspection before they were admitted into public Aeesu-jin facilities....."

It took nearly half an hour, but the doctor recapped everything. From taking DNA and RNA samples from all three of them, to finding a certain interest in a 'particularly clever young boy.' He then went on to sum up the discovery of Gohan's peculiar cells, and calling Gohan back to discuss them. He went into detail about Gohan's explanation for why his cells were as they were. Even to Gohan they sounded far-out; not only improbable, but more-likely impossible. By the time the doctor got into explaining Gohan's experience with Kami Larkas -- leaving nothing out that Gohan didn't leave out of his version -- the smell of doubt was absolutely pungent.

Once again silence filled the room, finally broken by the blue Aeesu-jin, "You really are insane, aren't you?"

Everyone started talking at once, verbally attacking the doctor, arguing amongst themselves, snapping and snarling like starving wolves, only occasionally interrupted by the doctor's calm, but authoritative voice.

"To think that you were once a-"

"-possibly believe that-"

"-a sick joke for-"

"-you just listen for a single _second?!_"

"-after everything we've done-"

And through it all, Gohan didn't say a word. He was too busy experiencing the chi in the room. It was indeed impressive. Intimidating for Gohan without his ability to transform. But it certainly wasn't the strongest he had ever felt. A single Super Saiya-jin would probably generate more. But it was very interesting in a different way. The Aeesu-jin couldn't control their chi. All the other times he had felt such incredible power, had been coming from allies or enemies, it had been well controlled and maintained and set at an appropriate amount for the battle at hand.

These Aeesu-jin's chi, however, was totally speratic. Even an individual with no ability to control their chi have their ups and downs with power. When relaxed, their power settles down like a layer of dust, and when agitated or called for, it rises to it's highest peak in what is commonly called 'powering up.' And as the Aeesu-jin spoke/argued/debated, their chi's soared to higher peaks, then flitted down a few notches as they waited for a second opportunity to speak.

It was like watching a lazer-light show of chi, feeling the different pitches of each person, occasionally catching the familiar chi of the doctor or the chilling chi of Heng.

Bojack looked down at the kid. His coal-colored eyes were wide as he quietly observed the giant Aeesu-jin, unaware the blue giant was watching him. His pupils had shrunk to pin-dots and it seemed that every hair on his body was rigid from concentration. _What_ he was concentrating on, however was beyond the Biraju-jin.

"What's your problem?" Bojack whispered in a low frequency voice; a Biraju-jin's hearing through their sensitive, pointed ears was often used to speak on low levels other creatures couldn't hear. The Aeesu-jin in the room couldn't pick up the sound with their pitifully lacking hearing talents, even if they weren't arguing.

Gohan's Saiya-jin-enhanced ears, however, heard it just fine.

He looked back up at the Biraju-jin to make sure they he had, indeed, said something, then looked back across the room at the Aeesu-jin as they continued their argument with the doctor; he spoke in as low of a voice as he could "These guy's chi's are.... incredible. They're strong."

"...so are we to suddenly take the word of some skinny little alien boy...," One of the Aeesu-jin's voices rose and broke it's way into their inaudible conversation. Bojack didn't say anything as he looked down at the boy, watching his profile.

Finally he asked, "How strong? Stronger than you? Me? I doubt it."

The boy gave him a surprisingly weary look of warning, as though he were thinking of a hard-learned lesson, "Don't automatically assume no one's stronger than you. If I could transform I don't think I would be as cautious, but at the moment.... I don't know. Combined, their power might be higher than yours."

"...what if this boy _is_ telling the truth? Don't you think..." The doctor's pleading voice flitted in and out again, briefly catching Gohan's attention.

Bojack quietly snorted, "These Aeesu-jin are nothing to me."

Gohan gave a smile with no joy in it, "That's what you thought about me..." Bojack narrowed his eyes and Gohan half expected him to lash out and hit him for saying it. He added, "All I'm saying is: It's not smart to underestimate any opponent. I've learned that the hard way, and you should have by now, too."

Both didn't say anything as they half-listened to the Aeesu-jin's argument.

"...no proof that..."

"...it so inconceivable that..."

"...irrational behavior compromises..."

Bojack finally said to the boy, "But as things are, _you_ would be killed if a fight were to break out?"

Gohan took a deep breath. As modest as he was, he still didn't like having to admit he probably wouldn't survive a direct fight with the enemy at hand. He had nearly killed himself training enough times to get _out_ of the 'weaker' category of fighters to have to sink back to it, now. "It's a possibility."

Bojack huffed to end the conversation and crossed his arms over his broad chest. He was in a foul mood. Gohan turned his full attention to the Aeesu-jins just as one of the largest of Heng's secretaries raised his voice.

"So you're accusing us of being ignorant?"

"No, no," the doctor said, "I'm just saying it could be to our advantage to listen to a warning. Better to error on the side of caution-"

"Doctor Koda," Heng said, and the very deepness of his voice rang in Gohan's guts. Everyone became silent, and Gohan realized that he hadn't spoken once during the whole argument.

"Sir," the doctor said, looking surprisingly humble and small.

"Do you have any tangible proof that anything this boy has told you is true?"

"I have some samples I took from him when he first came in, and they definitely suggest he was healed in some supernatural way-"

"You're kidding, right?" another Aeesu-jin interjected, "Look at the kid! There is no way he could have been healed by some blasted Kami!"

Everyone in the room turned to look at Gohan, critically taking in every cut and flaw on him.

"What happened, anyway?" A second Aeesu-jin asked, "Looks like he's been fighting....is that a tail-whip mark?"

Gohan's hand automatically went to the cut on his cheek.

"Looks like it. But if he had been fighting an Aeesu-jin, wouldn't he be dead?"

The room suddenly became deathly quiet.

"Where did you get that scratch on your face, boy?" Heng rumbled, "Don't you dare lie."

Gohan began to realize that his next words could mean life or death. He fingered the cut on his cheek and hooked his tail around his knee to keep it from whipping about behind him; he still didn't have much control over it.

Taking a deep breath he said, "A friend of mine was being attacked. I was trying to help him..."

"Who was attacking him?"

There was a tightness in Gohan's chest that was making it hard to breath, reminding him of the diagnosis the good doctor had given him earlier. Cracked rib, perhaps more. The ache in his side was becoming an acute, piercing pain that seemed to send signals up and down his ribs, making the skin under his gi twitch uncontrollably. Clamping his teeth, he said, "I don't know who was attacking him. I didn't catch a name."

Truth. He really was telling the truth. He never had been good at lying, but he had grown to be a master at giving the truth in misconstrued ways.

"Was it an Aeesu-jin?" Another Aeesu-jin asked.

Gohan had to put his hand against his side as the stress began to make it throb, "Yes."

_B-bum, b-bum, b-bum._ He could feel his heart, beating in his side, every thump sending new waves of pain over the myriad old pains.

"How did you survive? You're a Saiya-jin aren't you? No Saiya-jin could beat an Aeesu-jin."

_B-bum, b-bum._ "Luck. It was just luck. I don't know exactly how I did it. They just didn't see me coming until I was already attacking."

An Aeesu-jin stood up, "'They'? There was more than one?"

_Oh, kami_... Though it was horrifically cold in the room, Gohan was hot. His entire rib cage felt like it was on fire.

"So did you kill them? Did you kill these Aeesu-jin?" Another asked, almost mocking.

Gohan didn't say anything as he began to see little dark spots coming in from the corners of his sight; he had a white-knuckled grip on his gi. He squeezed his eyes shut. "I don't know."

"You don't _know_?" A large, purple Aeesu-jin asked, "How can you not know?"

Grasping at words the wouldn't convict him and trying to think with an uncooperative brain he said, "I barely escaped with my life. I don't think I killed any of them..." Now he was edging into a lie. They saw him as a tiny Saiya-jin boy. A weak, tiny Saiya-jin boy. Gohan thought it might be smart to keep them thinking that; better they underestimate him than overestimate him. He wished more than ever that he could be able to transform. Just to _know_ he could if things got bad....

"This is ridiculous. A mockery," another Aeesu-jin said, he turned to Heng, "Sir, this is insane."

A deep rumble of thought came from Heng as his small, shiny red eyes scrutinized Gohan, "I tend to agree. This Saiya-jin brat is probably mad, lost his sanity somewhere along his filthy life and doesn't know the difference between reality and fantasy."

"No," Gohan said.

"Now the little rat thinks he can argue-" an Aeesu-jin began to say.

"Can't any of you put your own ethnocentricy aside long enough to listen to a warning?" Gohan asked, frustrated, agonized, continued, "Could it possibly be so hard to ignore your pride for a single second to even consider that you could _die_? Is your pride more important than your life?"

"I have heard enough," a green Aeesu-jin said, "You should leave now, kid-"

"You're being senseless! Stupid! You're compromising the lives of every Aeesu-jin on this planet simply because you-"

"That is enough," Heng said, his thundering voice blasting Gohan's quiet one to pieces, "Doctor Koda, who is responsible for this alien?"

"Ah...," the good doctor said, "The Aeesu-jin Sunow. I assure you this boy is here legally, represented, and located correctly."

"That's not why I was asking."

The doctor suddenly went pale, "You're not..."

Heng turned his large head to an Aeesu-jin next to him, "Locate this Sunow person and have him executed."

"What?!" Gohan raised his voice, "You can't-"

"He didn't educate the off-planet alien he was responsible for in the proper conduct used when speaking to an on-planet Aeesu-jin," the green Aeesu-jin said.

A blue one added, "We only have one punishment for such a failure."

"Wait, wait!" Gohan said, suddenly feeling frantic, "But he has two kids! What about them?"

"Hm?" Heng said, "Well, I suppose they'll have to be killed, too."

The blue Aeesu-jin added, "We can't have any little orphaned Aeesu-jin running around, after all."

"No." Gohan said. "That's not fair."

Two large Aeesu-jin rose from their seats to follow through with their orders.

"And of coarse," Heng said, "You will all have to be killed as well."

"Wait-," the doctor said as three more Aeesu-jin rose from their seats. Gohan could feel them raising their battle chi as they slowly approached. And one by one, the other Aeesu-jin rose from their seats until none save Heng were sitting. The preposterously sized Aeesu-jin remained seated. He pulled back his immense lips and grinned, showing two rows of giant, white teeth while his bloated tail thumbed against the arm of his chair.

The entire situation was almost too much for Gohan to bear. The sharp pain in his side pushed back his more rational side and things almost seemed insane as he felt everyone around him begin to raise their chi. His coal-black hair caught on invisible waves of chi as his natural instincts tried to send him cascading into his Super Saiya-jin form, failed, and started rising his chi anyway. Instincts didn't reason out that Super Saiya-jin transformations were impossible, they only knew that one was necessary; deep down inside, something was tearing violently to break free but failing.

It was his rage. After his initial Super Saiya-jin transformation, his body naturally channeled the power his anger gave to him into that specific form, it was safer, stronger, and more equipped to control it. But now the very option of transformation was gone, but his body didn't care, so it loaded the power it thought it was supposed to into a form that didn't exist. Something was expanding but refusing to explode. Something deep in Gohan's body and mind, and he didn't know what it was, or what to do with it.

He only knew that it felt like it would burst him open and destroy him if he didn't do _something_.

But it was Bojack who acted first.

The offensive Aeesu-jin group, so huge and intimidating, suddenly went from a slow walk to an all-out charge, coming forward at an incredible pace. It was the doctor who was unfortunate enough to be standing in the forefront, and it was the doctor alone who was struck. Once, twice, three times, once in the face and twice in the chest, he sunk to his knees, too stunned by the raw power in a mere three blows from his attackers.

A deep, rumbling sound echoed from somewhere deep in Gohan's throat as he gathered his chi and abandoned his defensive fighting stance to prepare to lunge forward--

--and Bojack raised his hand, gathered a large, phosphorescent ball of chi, and blasted the Aeesu-jin nearest him. In an instant, everything seemed to pause as the blast enveloped the Aeesu-jin too fast for him to react, blackening and charring his body before it imploded. An inky cloud of ash that circled the air twice then vanished was all that remained.

The Aeesu-jin stood, frozen in shock for half a second, their eyes riveted on the darkened spear where their comrade had once stood. It seemed to take them an hour to trace the path the chi blast had originated from, and all of them stared at Bojack in open shock. And finally comprehension sunk it. Shock turned to anger. Anger to rage. And all five remaining Aeesu-jin rushed at Bojack instantaneously.

"Stop!"

Heng's voice broke through their rage-clouded minds like a knife, and the five froze in mid-step.

"I don't want this holy place damaged with battle," Heng said, his eyes glaring into Bojack's. The Biraju-jin returned the gaze unwavering.

"Get out. Get out, now, and you might be able to run fast enough to escape my wrath, " Heng's very facial color began to darken, and as he spoke his cheeks jiggled with rage and his white-knuckles trembled, "I don't want this holy place damaged, but I will do whatever it takes to kill you, _all_ of you. I'll send every warrior I have, every Aeesu-jin that even half-knows how to fight, _everyone_. I'll send them after you, and you will all be killed, and you will feel the wrath of the Aeesu-jin. And when they find you, your screams to be put out of your misery will fall upon deaf ears."

Bojack smirked, lifting half the scar on his face, his golden eyes narrowed knowingly. Heng was scared. And both Bojack and Heng knew it.

Gohan hadn't been aware of these last occurrences, however. He had frozen the instant Bojack's blazing attack had whizzed by his ear, so close he felt the heat of it, and from that moment on, his mind was white. Completely white. The rage and anger were bubbling and foaming deep down like molten rock, searching for a fissure from which they could explode. And then his body began to remember what it had done before Super Saiya-jin was an option. And slowly, then picking up speed, the scortching-hot rage began to fill every nook and crevice of his mind, searching for even the tiniest of cracks to escape through.

And while the five Aeesu-jin froze at Heng's orders, while Heng threatened and cursed them, a small crack did appear. For when the Aeesu-jin froze, he could see behind them. Laying on the ground, on his side, was the doctor. He wasn't moving, and even as Gohan watched the puddle of blood pooling out from his nose and mouth grew larger. A dark, violet colored blood. Gohan could smell it. He knew the smell of blood. His fists were so tight his fingernails were sinking into his palms, but he didn't feel it. He didn't feel anything; his ribs no longer hurt, he couldn't feel the gash on his cheek. The only thing he felt was searing-hot, uncontrollable, irrepressible rage.

And the violet pool of blood around the doctor's head got bigger and the smell of blood got stronger and Gohan's vision was shaking too much to see if he was breathing.

And while Freeza and Bojack turned to leave with their lives, the crack finally gave way under the pressure of the blinding hot rage and something in Gohan snapped once, then exploded.

He didn't even remember moving, but suddenly he was in the air, burning his white aura as bright as the sun, moving faster than his body should have been able to, faster than anyone in the room could possibly follow.

Except Bojack.

Though Gohan felt like he was moving faster than he ever had before, he was only ten feet in the air, his fist only half lifted in attack, when Bojack caught up with him, yelling, "Stop, dammit! Do you want to _die_?!" The giant hadn't even flown, for in two swift paces, his large blue hand had flown out after Gohan--

--and his large, muscular fingers grabbed ahold of the last half foot of the boy's long, slender tail, sinking into the springy brown fur.

Gohan jerked to a stop in midair, involuntarily sucking air through his teeth. Everything rushed out of him, wiping his mind of even the once dominant rage. And right on the heels of rage went reason. Pain took their place.

It wasn't pain like one would think pain to be. It didn't burn or throb or set his teeth on edge or send shoots of white dancing across his eyes. It was a kind of numbing pain. A cold pain, cold as death, and besides the cold no other feeling existed. And for Gohan, it was shooting up and down his spine in wicked, swirling arcs. He felt only a phantom of pain in his legs, as though he knew they should be there but for some reason they weren't. Then they were gone, and the phantom moved up his spine, down his arms, into each finger, then up to his brain.

Slowly at first but picking up speed, he fell to the ground. Only on a vague sense did he feel his head hitting the marble tiles. His blinding-hot, irrepressible, uncontrolable rage vanished, leaving him feel empty and hollow. The only emotion he was aware of now was absolute fear, underlayed with gut-wrenching shame. Embarassment. Humiliation. Frustration. He couldn't move, but it was so much more than paralysis. He was a wounded animal, awaiting death. Where had all his power gone?

Deep in the back of his throat, he let out a whimper that was an attempt to speak, to convey a message, but his lips only parted half-way then refused to respond, leaving his mouth open. He eyes were slitted, heavy, but they refused to either fully close or open. The blue giant was gripping his tail too tighly; he couldn't feel anything. Nothing from his neck down, or the cold tiles under his cheek. He wasn't even sure if he was breathing.

Bojack was more surprised by the boy's reaction than Gohan was. He had only been flailing after the boy, grabbing at anything he could to keep the damn bozu from getting himself killed; and taking Bojack himself down with him. He knew nothing about Saiya-jins or their anatomy. Nothing about them at all. It had just been another example of pure, bitter, unremorseful bad luck.

Bojack stood above the boy, laying unmoving on the floor, and his eyes turned to Freeza for an answer.

The off-planet Aeesu-jin half-grinned, though having Heng watching his every move kept him nervious, "Well, seems you've found out the weakness of the Saiya-jin."

And it was all the explaination Freeza gave. With a final mental shrug, Bojack reached down and, still keeping a tight grip on the boy's tail, picked him up by the back of his gi. Lifting him off the ground until the toes of his boots dangled above the ground, Bojack called to Freeza, "Oi. We should bring that doctor fellow, too. The kid might want to come charging back in to save him if we don't."

A small, hardly audible noise came from Gohan's throat. An agreement?

Freeza smirked, "Suu da." And, though he was the smallest Aeesu-jin in the room, it took little effort to lift the top half of the unconscious doctor's body up onto his back, and in such a manner half-drag, half-carry him out of the ornate, beautiful room and into the hallway without. Bojack followed him, carring the dangling, limp Gohan in front of him, keeping his tail twisted around his wrist once, and held firmly in his hand.

He paused at the door and looked back at Heng.

"You _will_ die for this." The giant Aeesu-jin said.

Bojack chuckled, "No, I won't."

**To be continued........**

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	16. CM16

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 16**

"Saiya-jin?" Joru Le'Armont asked.

Henning reread the information he had downloaded from the Aeesu-jin archives onto his handheld computer, "According to this, that's exactly what that boy, Son Gohan, is. A Saiya-jin. At least he fits the description. Look at this; black hair, often described as 'wild.' Dark eyes. Pale, peachish skin colour. A natural knack for fighting. Sounding familiar? And of coarse, there's the unique tail."

"Unique tail?" Joru asked skeptically.

Henning pointed across the room at an Aeesu-jin, working hard to find more information for the Tahch-jin brothers, "See how thick and long that guy's tail is? It's nothing but solid muscle, built to inflict incredible damage with a single hit. Even though I can kill an Aeesu-jin, I would probably be killed if I got whacked with one of those. Aeesu-jin aren't the only species with tails, though. There are many others, but all of them are pretty similar. Hard and strong, solid and potent, a creature's tail is his greatest weapon if he uses it right."

Joru nodded.

Henning punching buttons on his computer until he brought up a picture of Son Gohan attacking an Aeesu-jin. The view was from the back, and as the boy was in midair, his tail was straight out behind him, "Saiya-jin tails, however, are completely different."

Joru didn't have to be told. A thin, furry brown tail was almost cute compared to the huge Aeesu-jin's.

"Not just in appearance, though," Henning said, probably reading Joru's mind if such a talent existed, "Saiya-jin's tails aren't _meant_ to be used in battle. According to this data, their tails actually put them at a _disadvantage_."

"Well, they certainly don't _look_ like weapons," Joru agreed.

"I said _forget_ appearances. It's their function that interests me. Aeesu-jin tails are supported by heavy, dense bones and compact muscles, lined with thick skin to protect them from incredible impacts. Saiya-jin tails, however, don't even_ have_ real bones; their supported by durable cartilage surrounded by highly sensitive nerve cells. Every pour has at least six springy hairs growing from it, making them incredibly padded."

"They sound worthless," Joru said, studying the picture of Gohan, "So, what? They get in the way when the Saiya-jins try to fight?"

"What?" Henning looked at his brother in confusion.

"Well," Joru said, pointing at Gohan's tail in the picture, "You said they were a disadvantage. Do they just flop around behind them, getting caught on things?"

"Absolutely not," Henning balked, "You were an eyewitness of a Saiya-jin's fighting skills, did his tail _look_ like it just 'flopped around behind' him?"

"Brother, you know I don't know a thing about fighting, and I don't make a point to watch for fighting techniques," Joru huffed, his hands clasped behind his back so Henning wouldn't see his bare knuckles, "Why don't you tell me, then. What's so disadvantageous about a Saiya-jin's tail?"

Henning tapped at his computer, drawing up a second screen; this one filled with three pictures. One was a full-bodied view of a Saiya-jin's nervous system, the second was an x-ray of the bones in a Saiya-jin's tail, and the third was a scientific replication of what the nerves in a Saiya-jin's tail would look like. He handed the three-part image to Joru as he spoke.

"A Saiya-jin's tail has an astronomical amount of nerves; making it the most sensitive part of their entire body. These nerves, however, don't run directly to the brain like other nerves do. In fact, every millimeter of the tail is connected, through the spine, to some other part of the body."

"You mean that their fingers and toes and ears and noses-"

"-are all connected to the tail as well as the brain. Yes."

"Whatever for?" Joru asked as he brought his face down closer to the image to compare.

"Isn't it obvious?" Henning said, "Tails are used by all beings to help support and balance them. Using cartilage instead of bone, Saiya-jin tails have incredible flexibility. I'll try to explain this so you can understand." Henning lifted his hand into the air, one finger pointing at the cealing, "By lifting just one finger, my entire body has to adjust its weight to compensate for the action, of course it's so minor of a movement I'm not aware of it. But can you imagine by raising your finger, instead of having to use your entire body's weight to compensate, it sends a signals down to the tail--without even bothering the brain--and the tail does the adjustment for you? Of coarse it can't adjust to major off-balances, but without having to clutter the mind with so many automatic impulses there is more room in the brain for other things. That is one of the reasons Saiya-jin are noted for being able to react so swiftly to even the most spontaneous circumstances."

"Incredible," Joru breathed, "How could such a thing have a down side?"

Henning tapped the enlarged image of the nerves in a Saiya-jin's tail, "Because though the rest of the body benefits from the added control and balance, it must, unfortunatly, result in the tail being extremely sensitive. Though the coarse hair does a good job protecting it from any particular bumps or jarrs, a certain amount of pressure added to the tail can send a signal to every part of the body to stop moving, resulting in absolute paralysis."

Joru opened his mouth in wonder, "So anyone could beat a Saiya-jin if they just get ahold of their tail?"

"Not necessarily," Henning said, "It does take a certain amount of strength to totally paralyze a Saiya-jin. A weak species of alien can't grab hold of a strong Saiya-jin's tail and expect him to collapse. It would probably irritate the Saiya-jin, upset the sensitive hairs and perhaps cause pain, but there has to be at least enough power behind them to be able to hold onto the tail hard enough to mash the nerves together and scramble the signals running through from the other extremities."

Joru shook his head in amazement, "I suppose where there's an advantage, there's also a risk."

Henning grinned, "You're starting to sound like me."

* * *

It was a strange parade. Walking in the forefront was Freeza, only his waist and down visible under the immense shape of the good doctor who he carried on his back. Even then, half of the Aeesu-jin doctor's body -- his legs and tail -- dragged along the tiles. Behind Freeza walked Bojack, who was carrying a very unmoving Son Gohan by the back of his gi with one hand, his other hand holding tightly onto his tail.

"You still under there?" Bojack asked mirthfully. He was in a relatively good mood.

Beneath the bulk of the doctor's dead weight Freeza responded, "Shut up, this is ridiculous. I'm not carrying him anymore; we already saved his sorry life by getting him out of there, we don't own him anything."

"Is he even alive?"

Freeza looked around for a suitable place to dump the doctor as he responded, "He's been breathing down my back since I picked him up, so yes, he's alive."

Bojack shook Gohan, making his arms and legs sway back and forth beneath him, "Hear that, bozu? Your doctor friend isn't even dead."

Gohan, of course, was unable to respond, though something akin to comprehension crossed his heavily lidded eyes.

Freeza approached the next door he came across. It was an Aeesu-jin residency, the Aeesu-jin that lived there was probably not home from work yet.

"This should do it," the Freeza said, hitting the door-open command, "He'll probably wake up in an hour or so. Then he'll be on his own."

With that, he dumped the unconscious Aeesu-jin into the empty complex; with a _swish_ of the door, the doctor was enveloped within and gone from sight. Freeza dusted his hands together in a 'my work is done' type manner.

"You can let the kid go, now," Freeza said.

Bojack raised his eyebrows for a second, saying, "Oh, I suppose I could. I almost forgot I had him."

He lifted the boy higher into the air, in a silent 'should I, or shouldn't I' position, looked down at Freeza for a moment, then unceremoniously dropped him.

Gohan tumbled onto his stomach, for a second still unable to move. He wasn't aware of much at first, he was breathing heavily, and under his gi he could feel twitchings and tremblings as he regained control; his entire body tingled as though it had fallen asleep. But he could feel himself breathing again. He could feel his aching chest heave in and out deeply, filling his lungs with as much air as they could, then releasing it slowly. The pain in his ribs--piercing and sharp--was almost welcomable. It made him feel real.

But just as he felt like he was okay again, emotion returned to him. All the anger and hatred and rage he had felt toward Heng boiled up from wherever it had retreated to with as much intensity as it had originally. But his target was now missing. He had been aware enough to know he was no longer in Heng's warped heaven, and he had been aware enough to semi-hear that the doctor was indeed alive, but for whatever reliefs these facts were to him, rage remained. Hot and sharp, like a blade of fire.

He was at bloody war with himself. His rage wanted to explode and destroy, to find someone on which he could inflict his rightious anger..... His reasoning, a hardly audible voice compared to the deafening roar of his anger, was trying its hardest to keep him controlled. In the end, it was a tie, and he lay , propped up on his elbows, his fists clentched in an attempt to over-come himself.

"Come on, bozu. Move your ass. Let's go," Bojack's voice said somewhere above him. Gohan squeezed his eyes shut, trying harder than ever to keep himself controlled. He didn't want to look at Bojack right now. The Biraju-jin had crossed a line, one Gohan had constructed to keep himself feeling safe enough to concentrate on the problem at hand. Now, however, it was gone. Even to Gohan it wasn't hard to imagine who he would attack if his anger got the better of him.

"I said get up," Bojack said, and Gohan could feel the Biraju-jin begin to approach him.

The boy's power was begining to peak as he faught to contol it. His chi fluxed out around him, the floor caved in as he flew upward to land on his feet. The pain in his ribs was weighing heavily against him, and as his feet landed softly on the floor, he had to wrap his arms around his side to keep from crying out. But he was up. He was standing.

"'Bout time," the Biraju-jin said gruffly, "I hope you weren't thinking I would carry you all the way home. C'mon already, let's go." With that, he turned and started to walk away, Freeza following his lead.

Gohan didn't move. Standing with his head down, his hair cast over his eyes, he didn't seem to have heard Bojack. He didn't trust himself to move. He was trembling, everything from the back of his neck, down his powerful little arms, to his clentched fists. Trembling. Shaking. Barely under contol. His face was almost blank as he stared at something between the tiles and his eyes. No thought would stay in his head, as his entire mental power was going into trying to control himself.

Bojack paused, looked back over his shoulder, "You hear me, kid? I said-"

"Just," Gohan said through gritted teeth, "Just stop talking." Tight fists. His eyes were closed so hard they hurt. He wished Bojack would shut up. Every time he heard that deep voice, his rage elevated another two notches. Didn't Bojack know he was trying to save his life?

It wasn't an ego thing. Gohan didn't automatically assume that he could kill anyone with a small increase of rage. It was the possibility that he could. The possibility that he would lose control of himself. He was afraid that he would _accidentally_ kill someone in a fit of rage and forever after have their death as yet another number on his body count. He had already killed Bojack once. To do it twice was just not an option Gohan really liked considering. It just couldn't be healthy.

However, something cold and wild in the back of his mind was wondering why he was even trying to restrain himself. Bojack had just humiliated him. Perhaps to an extent more than anyone ever had. Why not just let go? Tear a strip out of Bojack, maybe hurt him badly, maybe kill him. Punish him.... On a more primal need, where 'punish' and 'revenge' had no meaning, he just wanted to hit something.

Perhaps his pacifist side could have won if things had remained quiet, and he could think. His conscious brain was almost always calm and rational, and it could very well have worn away at and abated his stewing emotions.

He could have, anyway, if Bojack hadn't chosen that moment to turn around and approach him, closing the distance between him and the boy in seven purposeful steps.

It was strange. Gohan didn't really hear the sound of his footsteps. All he heard was an irritating buzzing sound in his ears, then, all too clearly: "Bozu, I don't think you-"

"_Kyaaa!_" Raging against the buzzing in his ears, Gohan's fist lashed out.

The buzzing stopped. Sound stopped. The world stopped. And Gohan's fist stopped. Stopped right in Bojack's large, sinewy hand. His anger hadn't even been enough to break through the Biraju-jin's first line of defenses, just as he hadn't been able to out-fly him back with Heng. Unable to attain his Super Saiya-jin form, he just didn't have the power needed to damage Bojack. He just didn't have enough.

But now that he had started, damned if he was going to try to get control of himself. By lashing out once, it was like opening a flood gate through which his rage seemed to burst from, scorching. He was attacking, now. His fists were lightening, darting, swerving, all targeted at causing _some_ damage. Any damage. It was, perhaps, one of the least successful assaults he had ever launched. Nothing got through.

It had surprised Bojack. Hadn't caught him off guard, but it definitely surprised him. He caught the boy's fists, flailing out of control in a way that looked almost amateur, sloppy, if it weren't for the potency behind each hit. He didn't dare let the kid break through his defenses. Having to be concerned about being injured by a mere boy, however, began to raise Bojack's own anger. Feeding further to his anger, he suddenly remembered it was this boy who had killed him. Strange, but all this time he had almost forgotten. Now he was more than just mad, and as he caught the boy's fifty-eighth blazing punch he realized enough was enough.

Bojack raised his large, blue hand and slapped Gohan across the face with his palm. Hard. And as his arm finished it's half-arc one way, he brought his hand back and slapped him again with his knuckles. Harder.

Gohan froze, his eyes wide. His anger fled from him as shock took its place and he took a slow step away from Bojack, one hand against his cheek. A thin ribbon of blood trailed down the corner of his mouth and dripped off his chin. He was speachless.

"What _is_ your problem?" Bojack was saying, and the very fact that he wasn't yelling made him sound all the more dangerous, "I just saved your life back there, those Aeesu-jin would have eaten you alive. Is this how you always thank your saviors?"

Gohan was incapable of speach. His hand against his cheek, he could only stand in wide-eyed surprise. He heard everything Bojack said, but comprehention was not to be seen in his eyes.

Bojack added, "Next time you try anything like that with me, I won't go so easy on you. Remember, that Larkas guy only said I couldn't _kill_ you. There's more than a thousand things I can think of that hurt, but don't involve killing. Attack me again and maybe I'll show you a few."

Finished, he turned and left Gohan standing there. As he passed Freeza--who had silently observed the whole thing--the Aeesu-jin tried to smile bemusedly at him, but the Biraju-jin's withering glare wilted his face back to neutrality. They two of them continued down the hall, this time not looking back to see if Gohan was following.

He wasn't. His tail hung limply behind him, the tip barely brushing the floor. His hand still against his cheek, the threat of Bojack's words sank in. _That Larkas guy only said I couldn't kill you._ Until that point, Gohan had just assumed he was untouchable. Had just assumed that Bojack and Freeza and Garlic couldn't touch him or they would die. He hadn't thought about it. There had always been more important things on his mind.

But now that he comprehended that this _was_ important, he still couldn't think about it, because he couldn't really think about anything. His hand slowly slid down his cheek and off his face, smearing the blood at the corner of his mouth more than wiping it away. He blinked once, twice, tried to think of something that eluded him. The threat of Bojack was one he had no control of. Perhaps the reason he hadn't thought of it before was because there _was_ nothing to think about. Nothing he could do about it. It was just a situation there was no way to avoid. Bojack had said _"Next time you try anything like that with me, I won't go so easy on you."_ The only solution was to make sure there wasn't a next time. He had to keep better contol of himself. If he lost control and attacked Bojack again......he could end up being beaten severly. His ribs were already working against him; chances were if Bojack were to lay into him, he would have many broken bones to contend with. And he would be unable to fight back without his transformations.

He was remembering the first time he met Bojack, on Earth. And he rememered Bojack torturing him, taunting him even as he broke his ribs, until his father had broken the rules of Death to save him. A shiver ran down his back, and through his tail. His hairs stood on end and his arms were covered in goosebumps.

He was aware of the pain in his side, and as he thought of what Bojack might do to him this time, he doubled over, his arms wrapped around himself. It didn't help, and he counted his heartbeat to the throbbing that wracked him. The sides of his head hurt, too, in the places Bojack has struck him.

With a small moan that originated somewhere deep inside him, he began to walk, dragging his feet, back to Sunow's home. Back to Bojack, back to Freeza, back to Garlic. Back to a place he didn't want to be, but he had no where else to go. Back to the situation he didn't want or ask to be in. Back to business.

He tried to walk up-right, his shoulders back, so if anyone saw him, they wouldn't know he was hurt, but his face tightened by pain, and he knew he wasn't fooling anyone.

He wished he were home.

* * *

Henning's squad of twenty well-trained soldiers stood in two neat platoons. Their chests out, their hands clasped behind their back, they each looked as proud and confident as Henning was in them. Though both platoons consisted mainly of Aeesu-jin -- recently recruited by indisputably loyal -- there was also a number of other aliens, horned, scaly, some furry, each hand-picked by Henning from each planet he and his brother landed and studied on.

What his brother didn't understand about him, was that he was a collector of people, not of death. To put the two thoughts together, he was a collector of lives. He took them, each from their respected planet, and molded them. Shaped them to be what he wanted them to be. Some couldn't handle it, some could, some died during it, and some Henning broke until they lost sanity. It was after that, once Henning had lost interest in them, that he broke them, mind body and spirit, to see how long they could last until they were begging for death.

It fascinated him, watching the strength of body and will. Watching it crumble and watching it build up, for the love of life and freedom was what linked life together all across the universe. It was Henning's passion.

The men had already been briefed on their mission. They knew where they were going. They were just awaiting command to do so.

"Do it now, and remember, I want him alive. You can kill the others if the situation calls for it, but do not kill _him_."

"Sir!" All twenty men saluted and hastily, orderly, left the room, leaving it empty except for Henning.

He was remembering something said between him and Joru.

_Brother, what do you see in this boy's eyes? Use only one word._

_Life. I saw life._

A thrill of excitment. From the moment he heard the words come from his brother's lips, he was constantly plagued with a thrill of excitment. Life. The very object of his fascination, sparkling in the eyes of an odd boy that seemed to contradict himself. Henning's hands were trembling even now, he had had a hard time concealing his excitment from his brother.

Whenever Joru wanted to sink into his passion, all he had to do was lay hold of one of his stones. To touch and taste and expiriance them and their feelings and memories. Henning, unfortunatly, couldn't. He tried to avoid touching anything, for once he did, once he knew it's pain and feeling and memories, he wanted to destroy it, for every time he touched them he could feel their very life in every one of their molocules. There was no satisfation in destroying a rock. That was why he dealt with people. He could see the life in their eyes, and feel it in their bodies, and as he killed them with his own hands he could feel it leaving them to the music of their screams of agony.

He reached into a pocket of his robe and pulled out something. It had been found in the wake of Son Gohan's daring escape from the Tahch-jin fortress; six black hairs. Hairs that had been burned off Gohan's head by an impotent attack from Joru. Henning held the hairs in his palm and leaned against a wall for support as he expirianced them. It was incredible, for by merely touching a hair it was like getting a glimps through a key-hole into Son Gohan himself. His pain and triumph, power and fear, pacifism and aggretion.

Beautiful and horrible, the life of a warrior who shouldn't be a warrior but excelled despite.

He wanted more than just a few hairs.

More than anything he had ever wanted before, he wanted Son Gohan.

**To be continued........**

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	17. CM17

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 17**

Someone was heading toward Sunow's house.

Deep in his own thoughts, Gohan almost didn't catch the twinge of chi. He had long since lost sight of Freeza and Bojack, purposely, and was trying to gain control of his nearly shredded thoughts, trying to move certain emotions -- fear, anger, humiliation -- to the back of his mind to permit him to be capable of functioning under his current situation. He could cope with the feelings later, when he was home and away from this mess. _If_ he ever got home.

He wondered momentarily if that dark place in his mind would ever fill up and spill over with his dark emotions, before he had a chance to quietly cope with it. It'd probably happened to people before. That was probably where insane people came from. He shivered and decided he should concentrate on where he was going. After nearly three days, it still wasn't a time to think. Just concentrate on the situation at hand...

Somewhere ahead, he felt the warm, familiar chi of Sunow, and the smaller chi's of Eesei and Forester, and he remembered his plans to get a warm bath and a drink of water. Not much to ask for, but it could certainly be uplifting. He still felt miserable, shredded, humiliated, hurt and ultimately helpless, but he was trying to give himself a light at the end of the tunnel, something to look foreword to. He needed it.

He didn't know exactly which way he was going, but his previous successes in finding his destination had built up a tentative confidence in him, and he wove his way through the halls--occationally having to 'excuse me, pardon me' his way through crowds of silently moving packs of Aeesu-jin, reaching ahead to Sunow's chi like a shining beacon in the dark, leading his way.

That's when he noticed a battle chi, rising to it's peak then staying at its elevation. Someone was preparing for a fight. Unfamiliar, but had the tang of an Aeesu-jin, it was heading in Sunow's general direction. Fast. Gohan forced himself to stay calm. On the heels of the first chi was a second, large and strong as the first. Then two, three, four more followed, rising to incredible heights. The boy made himself keep walking as he came across a more crowded hall, trying to keep as low of a profile as he could. There were more chi's rising, still. Now there was ten, then there was thirteen.

With a final push, he had cleared the busling Aeesu-jin and, as luck would have it, he came across a far more empty hall. Only two or three Aeesu-jin were here, all too small to be a threat. But Gohan was concerned. He began to walk faster. By the time the battle chi's stopped popping up, there was a whopping twenty of them. Most had the distinct Aeesu-jin after-taste to them, but some -- perhaps six or so -- weren't Aeesu-jin. They weren't anything Gohan had ever felt before. But they were strong.

Gohan picked his speed up to a jog. All twenty chi's were definatly heading toward Sunow, there was no mistaking it. And his Aeesu-jin friend had no clue the threat was coming. Gohan didn't know if he would be able to make it in time, even in an all out run. The chances of anyone getting taken prisoner this time was slim.

The boy began sprinting, feeling around to see where Bojack and Freeza were. Not close enough, and even if they did make it to Sunow's before him, what help would they be? They wouldn't know the enemy was coming until it was too late, and Gohan already knew that Freeza wasn't strong enough to contend with the enemy, and Bojack would have no inclination to help Sunow or his family.

Garlic. Garlic would feel the enemy coming. Whoever the chi's belonged to, they weren't trying to conceal their power in any way, and they were as evident as a bright sun on a cloudless day. But what could they do, even with a warning in advance? Their best chance would be to leave the apartment and try to lose them in the twisting, turning halls.

Gohan had a bad feeling about this. He ran at top speed.

* * *

Garlic's eyes snapped open and he shot up in bed, throwing his blankets off. In an instant, he was awake and standing, at first wondering what had awakened him. A pressure. There was an actual heaviness to the air, one only Garlic could feel, electrical, powerful. So heavy he could hardly recognize it as chi -- no, more than one chi -- and when it had dawned on him that it _was_ chi, he could only stand in amazement. He counted, though sorting out one from another proved a laborious task, for they moved as one.

There was twenty of them. They were close and getting closer, the gremlin felt an actual chill as he tried to fill himself with a hope that it was just some group of powered up Aeesu-jin taking a stroll. All twenty were sporting battle chi's. They were expecting a real fight, or a large massacre. Or both.

Chances were, Garlic mused uneasily, they were coming here. And by the time they were through, there would be no one left standing. Even as an immortal, Garlic feared death in a primal sense; he was afraid.

He hurriedly pulled on his cape and shawl, trying to deal with his macabre thoughts of what the future might hold, all the while he felt as though he couldn't breath under the weight of the approaching chi's. They were coming faster now, whoever they were; running if not flying.

He hurried out of his room and down the hall, stopping in the living room where he found Sunow, still busily working at trying to break into the files labeled "Tahch-jin."

The Aeesu-jin looked up, "Garlic-san?"

Forcing rising panic into a silent grim the gremlin said, "There's a fleat of people coming this way, very quickly. They feel like they're looking for a fight."

Sunow rose -- painfully -- from his seat, wincing at his bad arm, "Is it Backlash?!"

Garlic narrowed his eyes in annoyance, "How the hell would I know? Do Backlash people have something special about their chi?"

Ignoring the quip the Aeesu-jin yelled down the hall, "Forester, Eesei! Come quick, we have to get out of here!" He turned back and shut off his computer, saying to himself, "It probably _is_ Backlash. They're coming to kill me and my children-"

"Actually, they're probably looking for Son Gohan and Bojack. Those two are the ones that have caused the most damage, though it's probably little consolation to you. They'll kill you anyway."

Sunow swallowed and waited with growing dread for his children to come to him, "Hurry!"

Forester came running from his room first, stopping to go into Eesie's. He came rushing out carrying her, and she put up little resistance. She hadn't spoken once since coming back from her lessons with Son Gohan, but now was not the time to worry about her.

"What is it, Papa?" Forester asked, instantly recognizing the look of fear on his father's face.

"We have to get out of here," was Sunow's only response as he turned to head for the door.

"Why?" Forester persued.

"Now!"

Sunow seldom yelled, and Forester didn't ask anything further as he ran for the door where Garlic and Sunow were preparing to exit. The Aeesu-jin boy didn't make it to the door, however, for before he was ten feet from it, it exploded inward with a flash. Garlic and Sunow nearly caught the blast dead on, and were both thrown against the far wall of the room. Forester, not as close to the door as the adults, was thrown to the floor. Eesie, in his arms, didn't seem to react.

Forester struggled to sit up, only to see through the clearing smoke that the apartment was being swamped with giants; nothing was clear, they were just moving shadows. But Forester recognized many of the siloettes to be Aeesu-jin. Large, powerful Aeesu-jin, carrying behind them long, thick, deadly tails. Others entering entirely different, as the Aeesu-jin boy made out something akin to fins standing up on one of the intruder's heads, while another seemed to lumber akwardly on it's hind legs, it's entire body covered in long, swaying hair. The room was begining to fill, and behind the intruders Forester could make out even more. Too many to count. There was no chance of escape.

He scrambled backward, not trying to stand up, holding tightly to his sister. He looked behind him, searching for his father and Garlic. As the smoke finished clearing, Forester first caught sight of his father. He was in the corner of the room, probably hadn't moved, and he didn't look good. Though he was conscious, and didn't seem to have been too badly damaged from the explotion of the door, the impact of hitting the wall had jarred his broken arm. Presently, Sunow could do little more than grip his agonizing limb and try not to scream or pass out. He wouldn't be fighting in this battle.

Forester searched the room further until he found Garlic. The sight was disheartening. When the door exploded, the gremlin had caught the blast the hardest and, unprepared and stunned, he had been thrown across the room and into the wall just too hard. He must have hit his head first, and been unable to compensate before his body came crashing in behind him. He just hit too hard. His neck must have broken or something -- Forester was ill-trained to give an accurate medical conclution -- for where he lay, crumpled on the floor, his head was cocked at an unnatrual angle.

He looked very dead.

With a sudden, horrified thought, Forester realized he was all that was left.

A large, strong hand appeared suddenly, grabbing hold of his arm and jerked him roughly to his feet, knocking Eesei from his arms. The little Aeesu-jin girl scuttled across the floor to lean against the wall, curling up. Forester tried to struggle, but his arm was bent behind his back, he had no hope of contending with eight hundred pounds of Aeesu-jin muscle. He stopped fighting before he was hurt.

Standing before him, his massive hands on his hips, was one of the most bizarre looking aliens Forester had ever seen.. His rough-skinned face, starting with a massive under-bite, ended abruptly at his brow, the rest of his head sloping back into a mass of long, dark hair. From his jutting jaw stood two large canine teeth that poked out from his bottom lip and overlapped his top. He was a frightening thing to behold. Forester was trembling.

When the large, hairy alien spoke, his voice was gravely and heavily accented, "Where is the boy?"

"What boy?!" Forester spat, even through his terror he managed a voice of poison. He was an _Aeesu-jin_. He would _not_ be intimidated.

The ogre-looking creature narrowed it's small eyes and raised his hand inches from the Aeesu-jin boy's face. Forester saw his hair knuckles flex, then, from the mass of hair on his fingers, four three-inch black claws sprung, one for each finger but his thumb. They were shiny and gleamed as though they had just been polished.

"We can always do this the hard way," the ogre said. Forester couldn't find his voice as he stared at the razor edges of the beast-man's claws, "We didn't come here for you. If you tell us, we can let you go, but if you don't cooperate....well, you will give us the information we want eventually."

Whoever was pinning his arm to his back tightened his grip, and Forester was almost certain his arm was already half-torn out of its socket. He nodded his understanding.

"Where is the boy?"

"You mean Son Gohan?" Forester asked, though he couldn't think of who else they would be talking about.

"We have a name. Yes, Son Gohan," the ogre held the point of one claw half a centimeter from the boy's eye, "Where is he?"

"Ah...Papa said....he....why?" Forester's attention was so riveted on that single claw, so very close to blinding him, and his vocabularly left him, perhaps taking his wits with it.

"My boss is looking for him, but if you keep trying to change the subject I should warn you I have little patience so-"

"Heng!" Forester said when the ogre made a move closer to him, moving the claw of his attention.

The claw withdrew and the Aeesu-jin boy gasped -- he hadn't even realized he was holding his breath.

"Heng?"

"Papa said he went to see Heng." Forester closed his eyes, his head sagging. Was he so quick to betray someone? He didn't know Gohan very well, it wasn't like he was a friend or anything, right? Besides, if he told these people what they wanted to know, perhaps they really would let him, his sister and his father live. He had his family to think about!

"Where is Heng?"

Forester looked up at him, "I don't know. No one does. No one even knows what Heng is."

The ogre looked to one of the Aeesu-jin intruders, who nodded his head in confirmation.

An explosion erupted outside the apartment, sending the assailants still in the hall way crashing to the floor.

**

Gohan was fearing the worst as he rounded the last bend to reach his destination. Sunow's chi was slowly fading, Eesei's was hardly more than a whisper, Forester's chi was fluxing rapidly from what Gohan could only guess to be fear, and Garlic.... well, he was probably just hiding his chi.

A large crowd of huge Aeesu-jin were congregated around Sunow's apartment door, there was no mistaking that _these_ were the people, these were the wild and high battle chi's. These were the attackers. These were the people who were going to kill Sunow and his children.

With lack of a better plan -- and thereby the time to come up with one -- he gathered his chi and blasted the crowd of warriors before they even saw him coming, and by being caught by surprise, they didn't have time to react. As potent of a blast as it was, born of the anger and concern Gohan had for his friends, there was damage. The blast detonated on impact with the first Aeesu-jin it came across, obliterating him on the spot, the beings around him were thrown to the ground from the force of the explosion, then shoved back to the ground from an after shock.

Still trying to use his initial surprise, Gohan gathered a second scorching blast, bloody-red and incredibly bright; he launched it, and the assailants who were rising back to their feet were thrown down again.

By now, his element of surprise had been burned to cinders and the huge mass of warriors all turned, devoting their attention to him. They were well trained, as the boy could tell from the instand they attacked, for instead of blindly rushing forward they branched off in four groups, three flying in low, coming at him close to the ground, three more flying high, hugging the ceiling with their backs, three to the right, and three to the left. They were fast.

Gohan was forced to act faster. He gathered a third blast, more destructive than deadly, and thew it at the ground. It erupted in blinding flames, burning and melting the floor, walls and cealing and compramising visuals. Gohan didn't need to see, for he saw their location by feeling their chi.

He went right through the middle, diving between the twelve attackers and into the middle of eight more. He met them with his boots, driving his foot into and through a giant Aeesu-jin's head in an explotion of crimson and gray matter. Gohan's stomach rolled two complete circles, and he turned away from the grisly sight--only to come face to face with one of the most frightening aliens he had ever seen. Hairy and huge, his brow sloping backward while his jaw protruded with two giant teeth, he looked like a perverted cross between a wart-hog, an ogre and a demon straight from hell.

His shock neutralized his defenses, and the hairy monster took advantage of it, driving a gnarled, thick fist into his stomach, into his guts. Gohan tried to raise his defenses back up, lower his body into a workable fighting stance, and choke on the blood rising in the back of his throat at the same time. He wasn't fast enough, and the ogre slammed his other fist into the boy's head.

Mind spinning, Gohan forced himself to leap backward, but was too uncoordinated to control his landing. His back slammed into the wall behind him, knocking the wind out of him. This fight was not going well, and he couldn't come up with any trick that would.... wait!

With another burst of energy, Gohan threw himself through the door and into Sunow's apartment, now vacated of the attackers as they came outside to fight. Not expecting the boy to rush inside, where closed quarters would further hinder him, they couldn't stop him before he got in. The door had been blasted off already, but the boy managed to spin in midair and blast burning red chi through the doorway at the attackers trying to follow him.

He landed on his back inside, but leapt to his feet instantly, ignoring all kinds of hellish pain flooding his body. He looked around, saw Forester.

"Do you know how to center chi?" Gohan asked him, blasting a second time through the door way to keep the attackers out. It wouldn't last, for his own blasts were making the doorway bigger. His power was draining through the agony in his ribs and he didn't know how much longer he would be able to make blasts strong enough to hurt them.

Forester stammered, "Not very well, I-"

Gohan looked across the room for Sunow...he wasn't in any shape to help. Blasting once more through the doorway, Gohan saw that it was the last time -- the hole was too big, and the enemy was starting to enter through the cloud of smoke, "Where's Garlic?"

"He's-"

"I'm here," Garlic said.

Forester stared at him in shock, "But you were-"

His words were drowned out as a battle cry came from the enemy as they charged into the apartment. Gohan rushed forward to meet them again, almost instantly being struck in the stomach again. For all it was worth, he gave more than he recieved, his feet and arms never pausing as they blocked and struck faster than vipers, hitting anything they could. But he was wearing out, and the enemy kept coming.

"Garlic!" The boy yelled, ducking under a fist that would have broken his jaw, "Make a blast! Don't shoot it, just make one!"

"What?" The gremlin asked, now sure he heard him right.

Gohan gasped as he was whipped full in the back by an Aeesu-jin's tail, his breath temporarily taken away. Then Gohan felt something brush his tail. He had moved at just the right time, as luck would have it, for one of the attackers -- a scaly, reptilian alien -- had made a grab for his tail. A second slower, and Gohan would have lost the fight.

They were trying to grab his tail! How did they know about his weakness? _Not_ a time to think. Never a time to think. He was hit in the back of his knee and he almost crumpled. In desperation he wrapped his tail around his waist -- it felt very akward there, but at least it was harder to get to -- and started driving harder at the enemy.

"Just make one! Chi! Now! As bright as you can!" He choked as he was hit in the stomach again, "Brighter than the sun!"

It was hopeless! No matter how hard he lashed out at the enemy, he couldn't drive them back, for they were coming in at all sides, attacking his back even as they attacked his front, and he never seemed to be able to turn fast enough to block them all. He was losing. If this didn't work....

The room suddenly got much brighter as Garlic -- though he understand not why -- made a blast so bright it hurt to look at. He held it above his head, "Alright!"

Gohan couldn't look over his shoulder, but he knew it was time. He curled his legs up to his chest, then heaved them downward, and, using an Aeesu-jin's chest as a spring-board, launched himself backward, temporarly out of the murderous throng.

He landed, already gathering his chi in just a way, his fingers splayed across his eyes. He had never done this before, though his father had told him how it was done. The elements weren't right, for they required a sun to work, but hopefully Garlic's ball of chi would do. Either way, the boy knew he had to try it.

Throwing doubt to the wind he shouted, "Taio-ken!"

To the boy's relief, the room exploded in a blinding light, reflecting from Garlic's ball of chi, centered through Gohan's fingers, and filling the room, burning everyone's eyes. The attackers froze as blindness siezed them, clawing at their faces as though it might return their sight.

Gohan sagged on his feet for a second in relief, wanting to believe that he had won already and could pass-out and sleep, but he knew it wasn't so. Collecting his chi once more, he prepared to kill them in their moment of helplessness, using every last molocule of will power to staunch his conscience enough to do it.

One of the blinded intruders exploded in a bright, golden blast. Gohan froze. A second attacker's chest exploded outward, a bright ball of chi blasting through his chest and into a third. As he fell, Gohan could see who was standing behind him. Bojack had arrived.

And the weight of the massacre Gohan was preparing for was lifted from his shoulders, as the Biraju-jin took on the task. The room erupted in one bright blast after another as Bojack dealt death willingly to the intruders, one bright blast after another, each myriad blast followed by another until the entire room was lit up so brightly is was as though Gohan had done a second Taio-ken. And when the light finally died down, the room had been cleared of the attackers; bodies, some only pieces left, others charred to powder, littered the floor.

Bojack stood in the middle of the room, surveying the damage--his blasts had destroyed the walls, floor and cealing as well as the enemy. In the doorway, Freeza stood, his eyes rather wide as he saw the size of some of the dead Aeesu-jin.

"Well," Bojack said in the silence that followed, his eyes never leaving Gohan's, "Looks like I just saved your life, again."

Gohan was unable to react as he would have liked to. He would have liked to kill Bojack right then and there, but that option was out for many reasons. He would at least have liked to say something perhaps nonchalant -- though it certainly wasn't one of his strong points -- like "I could have done it myself, anyway." But he was unable to do that, either.

Infact, it was all he could do to just keeping his feet under him. As he breathed raggedly in and out, his knees shaking under him, it was impossible to hide the fact that he had been hurt. Badly. And for all he was worth, he didn't even bother trying to hide it. He was pretty sure nothing was broken, healing would only be a matter of a day or two, but his body was still flooding with natual painkillers and burnt out adrenaline that he wasn't even sure where his feet were until he looked down.

His gi was torn and splattered with blood -- both his and the enemy's; his arms were bleeding from multiple places, others dark and purple with rising bruises. He was sure his face wasn't any better off.

He tried to take a breath to speak, he had to say something, but on inhale his chest rattled loudly and he felt a cough wriggling up from inside. Unable to surpress it, he covered his mouth to try to stifle it. He coughed hard, his entire body lurching with effort, making his chest ich deep down. When he regained his breath and pulled his hand away from his mouth, he found that it was splattered with blood. He had coughed up blood.

Internal injuries.

"Son Gohan didn't need any help!" Forester said, and Gohan wanted to thank him profusely.

Freeza half-grinned, though he looked semi-pale. Seeing piles of his own kind dead was something all-together different than seeing an alien race dead. Still, he was able to keep his voice even as he spoke to Forester, "You know that's not true. True, half the bodies in here are the kid's victims, he wouldn't have been able to kill them all. Just look at him."

Everyone's eyes turned toward Gohan, who could only breath in and out, taking every flood of new pain with each breath as well as he could. His arms hung at his sides, limp, as well as his tail, which had fallen off his waist, slid down his hips, and now hung behind him, useless as a rope.

Sunow, leaning heavily on the wall, slowly stood up. Using his tail as a third leg, he managed to get onto his feet and remain there, "I want-" He winced and held his broken arm, "I want to thank you both. Son Gohan, Bojack, it seems you've saved me and my family once again."

"Hrmph," Bojack said. Being thanked bothered him more than he would have liked.

Forester looked at Garlic, "You were dead. Your neck was broken or something, I saw you."

The gremlin twisted his neck one way, then another; an audible popping sound came from his vertebrae, "I don't die. It was just a temporary, painful experience."

"Papa?" Forester said, not wanting to think about it, taking hold of his father's arm as he tried to start walking, "We should still get out of here. I'm sure that Backlash or whoever else is after us will be sending reinforcements once they realized the first group failed."

Sunow shook his head, "Give me half an hour. I'm sure the enemy won't come that soon after the first group, we should be safe for a while. I can't really move well at the moment, and once we're out in public, we'll have to be able to move quickly."

It was all the leave Gohan wanted or needed. Slowly, painfully, he moved across the ruined living room and down the hall to the bathroom. He was going to get that water and bath, by gum, and no one was going to stop him now.

The bathroom door closed behind him, and everyone in the living room heard the water running in the tub.

**To be continued....**  
**Illustration for this part**

* * *

*Taio-ken is the Solar Flare in the dub.

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	18. CM18

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 18**

Gohan pulled his boots on slowly. The bath had helped; his muscles weren't as knotted, his cuts and bruises didn't burn, and he had managed to rid himself of the smell of blood. He was very sore, though, stiff, moving fast hurt, but he was clean, his throat was no longer dry or scratchy since he had gotten as much of a drink as he could, and healing his ribs would surely only take a week or so.

Now fully dressed -- his gi was still bloodstained and ripped up, but he couldn't help that -- he stood in front of the mirror and tried to compare his reflection to the one he had seen last night -- had it only been a day? Most of his cuts had scabbed over, some of them were already peeling off to leave little white scars that would vanish in a week or two. He paused to thank his Saiya-jin heritage. The cut on his cheek had finally closed up enough that it wouldn't be able to tear open again, but it was pretty deep. A scar such as this could take years to heal completely. His stomach was starting to sink in, but his early days of training with Piccolo-san had taught him early to just tighten his belt.

He ran his hand through his still-wet hair, sending little droplets of water across the bathroom floor, and whipped his still-damp tail, making it _wop-crack_ like a wet towel.

Managing a small smile at himself, he left the safety and peace of the bathroom, feeling as uplifted as he dared.

**

Getting through the halls was easier than Gohan thought it would be. Though everyone they passed stared at them, openly, Sunow knew the halls of the Underground better than most, and he navigated them to and through the most deserted halls he knew, until he reached the exit of the residential areas and to the entrance to the halls used by off-planets.

These were the same halls Gohan tachi had used when they first arrived, pitch-black, carved roughly from the rocky mountain soil, unlit and untiled, obstructed with newly formed stalagmites. This time was far easier, however, for before they left, Sunow purchased lanterns to light the way. Following the Aeesu-jin, Gohan, Bojack and Garlic had no trouble seeing the way.

It was nearly three hours of navigating through the catacombs to reach the exit, and each minute that dragged by Gohan became all the more tired and aware of how long ago he had last eaten and slept. Walking, he was sure, was probably the worst thing he could do for his impaired ribs; twice he paused to cough, each time small flecks of red dotted his hands when he tried to stifle it. But as bad as he felt, he was coping. He knew how to deal with pain.

Sunow was the one he was worried about. Though earlier the Aeesu-jin had seemed to recovered, his condition seemed to have worsened since the throng of attackers burst into his apartment. Occasionally, Gohan looked up at him as he walked beside Freeza, clutching his arm as he led the way. He looked worse than Gohan felt.

The hardest part of escaping was getting out the main door, of which entailed getting through the large, cavernous room they originally had to enter though -- the giant, vertical wall along which climbed an unnumbered amount of Aeesu-jin as they went about their own business with prompt efficiency, walking along the steeping rock face on hands and feet like lizards with null a respect for gravity.

Freeza, in the forefront, starting headfirst down the incline, slithering over the lip of the horizontal cave that ran perpendicular to the great wall as though he were made of liquid, melting over the edge. Forester, though using only one hand to aid his feet, his other arm holding fast to his sister, was swift to follow. Sunow stood at the edge looking down, then looked at his arm, newly splinted by Gohan before departure. Taking a deep breath, he followed the other Aeesu-jins downward, jaw rigid from the strain it put on his still injured body. Bojack, more confident than ever, was the next to follow, kneeling down backward at the edge, dangling his legs over the edge until he found toe-holds, then slowly started down backwards, looking over his shoulder to avoid running into or stepping on the other Aeesu-jin he passed. Garlic soon followed.

Gohan now stood at the lip of the cave alone, loath to begin down as his body continued to give into soreness and stiffness, reducing the once piercing pain of his ribs to a dull ache that spanned his entire body. He knew the stiffness was a good thing; it meant his body was beginning to heal itself, but the situation couldn't have been worse. He almost longed for the burnt-out but still potent adrenaline that had already cleansed itself from his system.

Crouching at the edge, he became painfully aware that one of his knees was swollen to the point it could hardly bend. He remembered being hit in the back of his knee in the fight with those twenty strange attackers, and once again hesitated to follow the others. However, being left behind was the last thing he wanted, and though he was sure Sunow and Forester would wait for him, he was far from the mood it took to argue with Freeza, Bojack or Garlic about making them wait. Trying to use every technique he knew of to suppress and ignore his aches and pains, he started downward.

The sharp rocks beneath his fingers seemed more wicked to him climbing down than climbing up had, and there seemed to be less foot-holds to be found, and those that were seemed less steady as he scraped at the dark, slick stone with his toes in desperation to quicken his pace to catch up with the others. He was sure he must look rediculious, clinging desperatly to the rocks while his tail stuck straight out behind him like a flag. Twice the rocks beneath his feet started to give under his weight and he nearly fell the last fifty feet downward if he hadn't suddenly caught hold of a more sturdy holding.

But make it to the bottom he did, and he couldn't remember the time he was happier to feel solid ground under his feet. Sunow tachi were waiting, and they left the giant rooms, catecombs, halls, tunnels, rock, tiles, halogen lights and Aeesu-jin behind and made their way to the exit. And to the surface.

* * *

Henning stepped over the wreckage that was once a room, ignoring the shredded bodies of his once loyal brigade and paying no heed to the smell of blood and death. Instead, his attention was taking in the remains of the room, the still intact articles of furniture, the wall computer, and the hall that hadn't been affected by the destruction. He would check out the other rooms later.

"I don't think I need to ask if this is the Aeesu-jin Sunow's house," he said to his guide -- a skinny Aeesu-jin named Frig, who had no hope of being a fighter but was nonetheless helpful to the Tahch-jin. Frig nodded, slightly pale at the smell in the room.

Nudging one of the stiff corpses with his toe Henning asked, "Are we sure it was Son Gohan who did this?"

"Ah, no," Frig said, kneeling beside a body and rolling it over, exposing his blank eyes and face frozen in eternal shock, "Before you and your brother hired me, I was a homicide detective, and even before I brought you here I had examined some of the bodies. See, the hole in this man's chest is nearly ten inches in diameter. There are quite a few others remarkably similar to it. Burnt right through, from one side to another; very messy. The skin -- or in this fellow's case, the fur -- around the blast is nearly black from the heat."

Now moving out of the room and into the hall for a moment, the Aeesu-jin returned, dragging two other corpses along behind him, "The other bodies in this room are too badly damaged by heat for detailed analysis, but these two men must have been killed by a different person." Frig circled a wound on both the bodies, both of which were the obvious and immediate cause of death to the men -- one was a still smoking burn, the other an impression of a boot in the man's skull.

"This fellow was killed by chi as well, just like the first body I showed you, but this chi is very different from the other one. As I'm sure you see, this blast didn't puncture its victim's body. Rather, it enveloped it and burned it from all sides. A very deadly attack, but if you look at the point of origin, the area where this man was originally hit, you can see the blast wasn't really very large. The nature of such an attack is almost identical to the kind of blast that seems to have taken out half the wall over there."

Henning listened with wrapped attention, arms crossed, and he comfortable seated himself on a couch that smelled of smoke and burning meat.

"At least one of the people that killed these men must have been this Son Gohan you're speaking of, or else there's some other small, extremely powerful being out there, because not only does the size and nature of these second type of chi blasts coincide with what one of smaller stature would use, we could always look at the more obvious evidence," Frig gestured at the foot indention in the other corpse's skull, "Aeesu-jin don't wear boots, and even if for some odd reason they did, those are small feet."

"I understand, this smaller person is Son Gohan; I suspected as much. So the other person is...?"

"Well, I admit I don't know. There's no other evidence of his attacks except the chi--no fist or boot prints or any other physical attacks, but using common sense I would deduct he was large, huge, if I dare venture."

Henning instantly thought of the tyrantical blue giant that tore his way through warrior Aeesu-jin as though they were nothing more than bags of sand, "I think I know who the other attacker is, as well. Thank you, I appreciate your taking the time to explain the circumstances to me."

The Aeesu-jin nodded and went back to examining bodies and scortch marks on the walls. A true prefessional, he.

Henning went on to explore the other rooms of the apartment. Though the three bedrooms prooved to capture little of his interest, he froze on entering the bathroom, eyes wide, a slow, thin smile slidding across his face. The first thing he saw was small water-splatterings on the mirrors where droplets had stuck then dried away, leaving a spudge behind. In the tub, though the water had been long-since drained out, there was a dirty ring around the edges.

A blackish-maroon ring.

The person who had last bathed had been washing away blood, but had not paused to clean away the mess he left behind. It was a sweet sight. Henning knelt by the tub, leaning over it and scratching his fingernail long the ring, scratching shavings of the scum onto his awaiting palm. Immidiatly tasting and feeling the memories of the black flakes in his hand, he involutarily exhaled. It was an incredible mixture of adrenaline and pain and surprise and anger. The blood must have been a mixture of at least six different people, all bleeding together to contribute to the tastatious concoction Henning now held.

But through the different buzzes of each contributor's hopes, dreams, preferences and vexations, Henning recognized the particular tang of Son Gohan. The boy had been bleeding. The thought made Henning smile wider.

Satisfied, he stood and pulled his computer out of his pocket. Time to send news to his stuck up brother who had refused to come along. Where his sense of fun was was beyond Henning.

_Brother,_

_We should put the destruction of this planet on hold and make locating and capturing the aliens on this planet a main priority. I'm growing more excited about finding out who they are by the hour, and suggest putting your men as well as mine on the job. I know you haven't slept in the past two days, so please do us both a favor and go to bed. You're so disagreeable when you're cranky._

_--Henning_

He hit send and chuckled to himself. Joru would be very sore about his last comment, but it would be worth it.

He wandered out of the bathroom and back into the torn-up living room, sitting back down on the couch to think about the odd strangers on the planet, and the particular boy with them.

* * *

"Ready?" Sunow asked, his hand hovering over the final door-open button. On the other side of the door was the Outside, a place Sunow, Forester and Eesei had never seen.

Gohan took a breath, ignoring a coughing fit that tried to possess him. His tail writhed behind him uncontrollably. Sunow hit the button.

The door opened, and the boy winced with pleasure as real, unadulterated _sun light_ pierced through the doorway. Garlic shielded his eyes, Bojack began to grin. It was as though a great pressure had been lifted from their shoulders, and at first they couldn't bring themselves to take the final step into the outside world.

Gohan moved two feet forward into the sunlight, admiring every vast detail. The sun was just rising. It was morning. The boy wished he were back on Earth so he could fly to the top of the mountain and watch the sunrise, listen to the birds warble their songs of morning and admire the animals as they began to awaken from the nightly rest as the nocturnal forest members vanished into holes and caves. This was enough, however. For now, this was enough.

Bojack rose into the air, then took off into the sunlight, letting out a wild Biraju-jin whoop. It was as though he were young again, and he spun through the air like an air-born top, arms stretched out, the sun warming his blue skin and the wind whistling through his thick red hair.

The rest soon followed, though Gohan waited supportively as Sunow and his family tried to prepare themselves for the Outside world.

"It's so bright!" Eesei said, speaking for the first time since the incident coming home from school.

Deeply encouraged by the little girl's sudden improvement, Forester and Sunow exchanged frightened but determined looks, then leapt out into the fresh air, Gohan right on their heels.

Though they all seemed to have a general direction to go in -- north-east, toward the sun -- they didn't fly near eachother. They lost sight of eachother as they enjoyed the feeling of having wide, forgiving space around them. Spirits were soaring, Gohan even found himself smiling, his eyes closed, as he pretended he was flying over Earth instead of Aeesu-sei, perhaps going to visit Bulma, Vegita and Trunks, or maybe just going shopping for his mother.

Off in the distance, he could feel Sunow and Forester landing. Appearantly, they felt they were far enough away from the Underground to set up camp. With a heavy sigh, he altered his direction and flew to join them.

When he reached them, he realized why they had stopped. Forester was bent over, out of breath. Sunow was sitting on the ground talking to Eesei, looking weary. They had never flown long distances before. As strong as Aeesu-jin were, they were so inexpirianced that they couldn't even maintain steady flight, and doing so had taken alot of energy.

Gohan landed among them, subconsciously wrapping his tail around his wrist to keep it out of the way.

"So are we camping here?" he asked, reaching into his pocket.

"Yeah," Forester said, "I don't think Papa can fly another mile today, he's hurt."

Gohan nodded. Of coarse the Aeesu-jin boy wouldn't admit he couldn't fly anymore, either. He pulled out his capsule case. It was bent and scuffed from all the fighting, but Gohan was grateful it had even survived the chaotic past day, and he popped it open, selecting his capsule house.

"What's that?" Forester asked, leaning over the case.

"My house," Gohan said, clicking it and throwing it to the ground. They were enveloped in a cloud of smoke as the dome-shaped complex was released.

"You carry your house in your pocket? Where did you get that!" Forester said loudly, unable to determine if he was fascinated, frightened, or jelious.

"It was a present," Gohan said, "I got it for my thirteenth birthday."

"Wow, Songo's got a big house!" Eesei cheered, and started skipping toward it, "I wanna see inside!"

"Eesei, it's not polite-" Sunow called after her.

Gohan smiled, "It's alright. I don't mind showing people around."

The little Aeesu-jin girl tried to open the door, but it fell of its hinges inward, filling the enterance way, "Waaa! I broke it!"

Gohan picked the door up, leaning it against a wall inside the house, feeling mildly annoyed as he remembered how Bojack had broken it, "It was already broken."

The children were impressed by the size of Gohan's house. They had lived in a moderatly sized apartment their entire life, and the sheer size of each room nearly frightened them, while many aspects -- refrigerator, freezer, cabinets, windows and ovens -- baffled them. Never before had they seen such impliments.

"What's this?" Forester asked, holding up the object in question.

"A fork. It's used to eat with," Gohan said as he knealt before his open refrigerator. He went back to digging through its interior, his tail tapping mindlessly at the ground, searching for something, anything, to eat. Unfortunatly, he had already consumed pretty much everything in the house, and all his searching turned up was a fourth-bag of flour, one egg, and a teaspoon of vanilla.

"Well, what's this?" Forester asked again, since discovering the kitchen he had been systematically having Gohan identify every tool, object, thing and doo-hickey he came across.

"A frying pan, it's used to cook things on..... will you hand it to me?"

Forester handed the skillet to the boy, who moved Eesei -- sitting on the stovetop, to the floor.

"What are you going to do?" Forester asked, hovering, as he watched Gohan's every move with interest.

"I'm going to fry this egg."

"To eat it?"

"To eat it."

Senseing he was perhaps getting annoying, the Aeesu-jin boy stepped back to watch. It was rather interesting how the egg spit and sizzled when it hit the hot surface of the pan. Though science had never been one of his strong points -- to be true, he usually slept through it in school -- it was absolutely fascinating to watch not only the egg being cooked, but to later watch as Son Gohan actually put it on a plate and eat it. _Eat it_! He chewed it up and swallowed it, just like the text books said solid-eating creatures do, sitting at his kitchen table, his tail twined around the chair legs.

"Where's the egg go after you swallow it?" Eesei asked, watching the last bite of egg vanish down Gohan's throat.

The Saiya-jin boy licked stray yoke from his chin before saying, "To my stomach to be digested."

"Why?"

"Because," Gohan said, clearing his plate to the sink where he washed and dried it before putting it away, "People like me need food for energy, just like you need water. My stomach processes the food so my body can use it."

"Oh," Eesei said, "That's really wierd."

"I read about that," Forester added.

Gohan couldn't help but be amused. Having the two Aeesu-jin children with him helped get his mind off things. The egg most certainly wasn't enough to fill him, or even satisfy him, and he would be needing more to eat fairly soon if he wanted the energy needed to heal his ribs.

But he desperatly needed rest, so hopefully the egg would tide him over for now.

"Would you guys give me a couple of hours? I'm dead tired and need some sleep."

"Sure," Forester said, noting his sister yawn mightily, "I think we've all been missing sleep."

The Aeesu-jin boy carried his little sister back outside to take a nap with his Papa. Gohan made his way through the pleasanly familiar halls of his own house to his bedroom, subconsciously counting the turns it would take to get there. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow. He hadn't even bothered taking his boots off.

**

When Gohan awoke later, he found it dark outside his window. The sun had been rising when he went to bed. Had he really slept all day? His stomach seemed to be having contractions, and the sudden wave of hunger that siezed him made him want to vomit. He curled into a ball, his tail curling tightly around his knees, trying to mentally ward away the feeling of starvation. He had never really gone this long without food, or had such long intervals between meals. For the past three days, he had only been having one meal a day. It just wasn't enough to sustain him, and he didn't think he could last more than a week on such a diet.

The hollow feeling in his guts convinced him he wouldn't be getting any more sleep, so he rolled out of bed and onto his feet, suddenly realizing what a mess he was. The bath he had taken before had helped alot, but the state his gi was in -- bloody, torn, sweaty, wrinkled -- was inexcusable. His mother would throw a fit if she knew her son had been living in the same filthy clothes for three days straight.

The number of outfits in his capsule house was limited; he usually only went camping in it for a day and a night, making spare clothes unnecissary. However, with her 'one should be prepared for any occation' additude, Chi Chi had insisted Gohan keep a spare set of clothes packed at all times.

Gohan was grateful now, as he pulled out his change of clothes, that he had listened to her. However, standing in his boxers before a mirror, holding his clean shirt up to his chest, he knew right away that these were not the clothes ment for this situation. They were his house clothes, the ones he wore while seated safely at his desk, studying. A starched white button-up shirt and black slacks; not only were these clothes not ment for fighting, they weren't even ment for outside wear.

It was with great regret that he tore a hole in his pants for his tail. His mother would not have been pleased.

Nevertheless, he pulled them on. Later, he would change back into his orange gi. But now, if even for a couple hours, he _would_ be clean, comfortable, and well dressed. Smoothing out a wrinkle in his new shirt he turned one way then another before his mirror, examining his appearance with a critical eye. The loose sleeves, coming down well past his wrists, covered the bruises on his arms. The horrors of the past seventy two hours didn't seem to show on his face, refreshed after sleep. In nearly every way he looked as though he were just getting ready to sit down to his daily lessons.

The look was ruined, however, by the cut on his cheek, which had healed well considering the number of times it had been torn and retorn after each fight. Gohan had no doubt, now, that there would be a very conspicuous scar. It was disheartening, for he couldn't see a great scholar bearing a mark of war. It made him look like a fighter. It just ruined the whole outfit. The tail didn't help much.

Heaving a sigh, he tried his best to brush some of the volume out of his hair, but as always order could not be maintained.

Deciding he looked as good as he could get, he collected up his gi and carried it through the house to the washing machine. He was glad Bulma installed it. He put his old clothes -- pants, shirt, belt, arm bands, and undershirt -- in the wash and went outside, barefoot.

* * *

Sunow was the first to awaken, just as the sun was setting. It was a breathtaking sight, especially for the Aeesu-jin. He had never seen a sunset, and he could only hold his breath in awe as slowly a purple rose from one horizon, and crimson from the other, and the more they neared each other the brighter they got, their colors dappled with yellow and orange and pink as the dying sun shone on the clouds. The stars started to peer through the young night sky.

"Wow...," Eesei said, her eyes wide as she watched the sky. Sunow wrapped his arms around her, looking over to see that his son was also watching the heavenly spectacle, eyes as wide as Eesei's. It was a first time for all three of them.

"This actually is a pretty nice planet if you look at it from ground level," Bojack remarked. Sunow looked over his shoulder at the Biraju-jin. He hadn't known he was there.

"I didn't know the sky looked like that," the Aeesu-jin said.

Bojack looked down at him, his face eerily blank.

"How long were you standing there?" Sunow asked.

"I stopped when the sky started changing. I haven't seen a sunset in a long time."

"Do the others know we're camped here?"

Bojack nodded, "We've stopped by off and on, today. We recognized the kid's house."

Sunow's attention was diverted when he saw Son Gohan exit his house, wearing a very different outfit than the gi he had on earlier. It looked very proper, and as the Aeesu-jin watched the boy walk, he seemed to see a whole different side of him. He looked more appropriate in this dress. More like the quiet, timid, polite, young man Sunow had at first taken him as. A peaceful boy of ambition and determination.

"Wow, Son Gohan," Forester greeted, "You should have seen the sky! It had probably thirty different colors! What a sight!"

The boy smiled, looking up to catch the last splashes of maroon die down to dark purple, then the black of night. He sighed, "I missed watching the sun rise, then I missed watching the sun set."

"You've seen it before?" Forester asked, searching the sky for even a small glimpse more of the fiery color. But the sun had fully set now, and the sky had given way to millions of crystal starts, shining brightly.

"Yeah, the sky does that on Ear- on my planet. Sometimes, when I felt really down, I would get up early and spend the entire day just watching the sky. I'd lay on my back in the grass and watch the sun climb up the sky, sometimes hiding behind clouds, then shining down and warming me all afternoon. But I think the sunsets were my favorite, too. But after the sun went down I liked to watch the stars."

Forester closed his eyes, trying to imagine what such a day could be like. Looking up at the blue expanse of the sky, the wind a fresh, clean hand caressing his cheek. It was a heaven he never knew existed until now, "Papa, I don't want to go back to the Underground. Ever."

Sunow smiled saddly and put his hand on his son's shoulder, "Don't worry. I don't think we will ever go back."

Feeling guilty for his friend's predicament, Gohan lowered his head, his tail sagging to hang limply behind him, any joy he felt at remembering Heaven on Earth vanishing like smoke. If he hadn't gotten involved with Sunow, he would never have had to leave his home, his friends and his life. Why was it, the boy wondered, that every one who became involved in his life, and he took to heart as a loved one, ended up being made miserable by him? He almost moaned when he remembered the good doctor. I wished he could be proven wrong, and longed to have a friend that wasn't destroyed physically if not mentally because of him. Perhaps someday he would find that person. Obviously not here.

Fighting the depression he had worked so hard to get out of after his father's death, he went in search of firewood.

**

Gohan sat by a now blazing fire, his legs crossed and a book in his lap; his tail twined pliantly around one leg. Sunow sat beside him, watching the flames while Eesei slept with her head on his chest. Beside him sat Forester, who occationally threw a stick or some dry brush into the blaze. On the opposite side of the flames sat Freeza and Garlic. From some unknown place, Bojack entered their circle.

The Biraju-jin threw something into the middle of the campfire.

"Oh, ew," Forester said, scooting away from it, "What _is_ that?"

"I don't know what the hell it's called," the Biraju-jin said, poking it with his toe to position it on the fire for better cooking, "But I'm going to make it my dinner."

Gohan glanced at the thing on the fire. It really _did_ look unappetizing, even to Gohan, who had eaten many questionables when he was starving in the wilderness during Piccolo's survival training. It seemed to be the unholy child of an armadillo and a wolly mammoth, roughly the size of a deer with two wicked tusks sticking out above its eyes and a third horn jutting from the tip of its long nose. It had stripes of fur across its scaly body, long shaggy hair hanging from its shoulders and under-belly, while its head was covered in fine fur. Its tawny skin color quickly blackened as its hair caught fire and the thing started to cook.

Horrified that the thing was for eating, Gohan turned his attention back to his book only to realize he hadn't read the page he was on, yet. Flipping back one page, then another, he couldn't remember a thing he had just read for the past half-hour. The situation at hand, Gohan guessed, just wasn't suitable for book-worms. He set his book aside and rubbed the bridge of his nose. His ribs were hurting again and under them his stomach was writhing in pain. His tail was turning itself in knots.

Garlic grimaced. Freeza stared at the fire. An uncomfortable silence spread through the camp as all of their eyes were riveted on the burning carcass, watching silently as it spat and sizzled, its outsides blackening from the heat. It stank as its fur burned off, and even afterward, when it should have started smelling like cooking meat, it smelled of festering and rot. Gohan quietly cursed his acute sense of smell, the hairs on his tail stood on end.

Poking the animal once more, Bojack decided it was done. Pulling the it out of the fire by its neck, he paused before biting into it. The smell was just as evident to him as it was to everyone else, and though he had confidence it was safe to eat, the rancid reek was hampering his hunger. Biraju-jin could easily survive on one meal a week; he was weighing the costs and wondering if skipping this meal would be better left skipped.

His sense of adventure got the better of him in a way his hunger refused to, and he tore through the tough scales off the creature, revealing an oozy pinkish-gray meat. It looked like even in death the thing was continuously pussing. Willing away agravating hesitation, and stubbornly sticking to his first inclination, Bojack took a bite.

His face skewed as though in pain. Grimicing, he forced himself to chew. The meat was too soft, watery, as though the creature had no muscle at all. Were the meat only bitter, Bojack would have tolerated it. Sour, salty, sweet, any would have been fine. But there was no taste, leaving Bojack's tounge undistracted with flavor as his mouth felt its vile texture at full attention.

He chewed and swallowed. The meat slid down his throat. Dinner was done.

"I'm going to try sneaking back into the Underground, tomarrow." Gohan announced in the silence that followed, "Maybe I can find some real food."

It was the final statement. The group dwindled down to Sunow, Forester, Eesei and Gohan as the others preferred seclution for the night. Within thirty minutes, the fire died down, and a night chill drifted across the landscape. Shivering at a sudden breeze, Gohan decided his time under the night sky was done.

"I'm going in," he said as he stood up, brushing dirt from his pants.

"'Night," Forester said.

"See you tomarrow, Son Gohan," Sunow added.

Eesei snored quietly on her father's lap.

Gohan returned to his house to find his clothes were done being washed. Gratefully, the blood stains had all been removed; the sweat, the grit. It was bright again. He examined each article, setting aside the torn ones from the only worn ones. The damage wasn't as bad as it had looked when it was covered in blood and the only noticable tears he found were the one on his pant leg and the newer on that stretched along his back. Repairable.

He had learned how to ment clothes while training with his father and Piccolo to prepare for the androids. Whenever he came home and his clothes were torn up, his mother always got very worked up and yelled at everyone for getting too rough with her 'little boy.' So, before walking in the door for the day, Gohan would get his hidden needle and thread and sew up the shreds of his gi. His mother didn't even notice.

Within an hour the tears in his orange gi could only be noticed under the most careful scrutiny.

His eyes were getting heavy just as he was putting his sewing kit away. He undressed and went to bed. Even after napping the entire day the boy was asleep the instant his head hit the pillow. He dreaming his mother had made a huge dinner, but she kept putting all the food on a shelf in the clouds and no matter how high he jumped he couldn't reach it. It was frustrating, but then again, so was life.

* * *

The morning came too quickly for Gohan's liking, and with it came hunger. More acute, if such an extreme case could exist, than last night. He felt sick with hunger. Though he hadn't eaten, he wanted to throw up. He felt like his body, wrathful at not being fed, wished to disgorge his stomach in retaliation for the pain it felt, and perhaps his other entrails along with it. He felt like he was dying. He had only been awake for half a minute, and he already felt the day was doomed to bad luck, which was rather abundant of late.

He got out of bed, dressing in his old orange gi. If he wasn't so hungry, he could have almost felt good. He was clean, he was getting into freshly washed and mended clothes, he was in his own home, and he was out of the Underground. Hunger destroyed the positive.

He opened his closet, digging out a duffel bag. He looked it over, checking it for holes, before slinging it over his shoulder. He would be needing it for later.

He made his way through the house and into the morning air.

Sunow was already awake, though his children weren't. The others were not to be seen.

"Good morning," Sunow greeted when he saw the boy, "Still going to sneak into the Underground?"

Gohan said solemnly, "If I don't, I'll probably die."

The Aeesu-jin nodded his understanding, though concern was evident on his face, "When are you going?"

The boy looked at the sky, assessing the sun that rose only hours ago. His stomach sent another sickening wave of nausea over him, "I was thinking now."

"Are you ready? Do you have any sort of plan?"

The boy nodded, "I'll sneak into the air ducts, bringing this," he patted his bag, "with me. That way I can bring food back with me."

Sunow was still concerned, "But how will you find food? It's not really abundant among Aeesu-jin-"

"I know. But the vents connect all the rooms of the Underground, right? I should be able to smell it."

Sunow shook his head in dismissal, "Well, good luck then. Do you want me to accompany you to the mountains?"

Smiling, Gohan declined, "I'll be alright."

"Good luck."

"Thanks."

The boy started flying.

**

Finding a way in was easier than he ever could have hoped for.

Directly on the side of the mountain -- near its top, actually -- was an air vent; hardly large enough for a full grown man to climb through, but accessable to someone as slight as Gohan. He searched around it, feeling almost suspitious at how fast he had found it, and how unguarded it was. If an ambush was planned, however, it was in a horrible place, for the boy could see for miles around him, and he felt no chi near by. Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, he tore the grate off its frame and wiggled his way in, wrapping his tail around his thigh to keep it out of his way.

Dragging the duffel bag was harder than he would have thought. He tried pushing it ahead of him, but it made too much noise. He tried dragging it behind him, but it was very akward in the cramped vents. He finally had to tie it onto his back, scooting commando-style on his elbows. It worked well enough.

He took a deep whiff of the air, seaching for the sent of edibles. Fate seemed to finally be smiling on him, for his senses almost immidiatly picked up something that smelled so wonderful his stomach seemed to be trying to climb up past his lungs to run ahead of him after it. He quickened his pace, trying to be as quiet as he could, while his mouth watered in anticipation, and it wasn't long until he reached his destination.

It was a kitchen, no a pantry. As Gohan forced his way through the grate blocking the vent and into the room, he was greeted merrily with aromatic foods of all shapes and sizes, lining one shelf after another. He felt as though he had reached heaven at long last. Dropping his duffel bag onto the floor, he couldn't have stopped himself if Kami-sama himself had ordered it.

He grabbed the first container of food near him, opening it to find dilectable little pastries within, filled with a tart fruit and topped with a sweet frosting. He emptied the entire container within ten minutes, leaving his face speared with red jam and his fingers sticky with frosting. Moving on to the next container, he discovered some interesting little bread pockets, stuffed with some sort of green vegetable and a thick white cheese.

It was in this way that Gohan systematically cleared three shelves of their contents, ingesting each treat like a new pleasure sensation, and slowly his hunger abated. He no longer felt sick. It felt good to have food in his stomach again.

Once again in control of his body, no longer uncontrolably pressed to put food in his mouth, he started packing other containers into his bag. To use space most efficiently, he packed two containers worth of food into each, stuffing each in strategically so others could fit as well.

He was putting the last container into his bag when the door to the panty suddenly swished open and a Tahch-jin walked in.

Gohan froze, so did the intruder.

Backing away, the Tahch-jin said, "You're...."

Gohan was unable to move, his entire body was rigid. The hairs on his tail stood on end, and his body sank into a crouch. He was prepared to kill the Tahch-jin if he made a sound. He would have to kill him. He was a threat.

But when the Tahch-jin ran out the door in fear, he didn't follow him. Instead he hurriedly finished packing his bag and shuffled back into the air vent, closing it behind him.

* * *

There were few times in his life that Henning actually felt alarmed about something, but when his brother came tearing into his office, pail and yelling, he was hard-pressed to be anything but surprised.

"He's here! In the kitchen, I saw him! How could he have-"

"Joru! Joru!" Henning rose from his seat, grabbing his brother by the shoulders, "Who's here?"

The other took a breath, breathing, then said more coherently, "Son Gohan. He was in the kitchen."

"What?" Henning said, his eyes lighting up, "He is?"

Joru nodded, frightened by the glee his brother portrayed in knowing they had just been infiltrated.

"Put all men on alert!" Henning barked, returning to his professional persona back on, "I want this place crawling with Aeesu-jin, put three men on monitoring each room, and remember! I want him alive!"

Joru, still startled and pacing with nervous energy, barked the orders to an Aeesu-jin guard, who ran out of the room to follow his orders.

* * *

The faster Gohan moved, the more noise it seemed to make, the size of the vent he was climbing through seemed smaller and more cramped as he dragged the large duffle bag of food behind him. He could feel his heart pounding in his stomach and the strain was painfully affecting his ribs. As he moved, he worked up dust that filled his lungs, making him want to cough. He could feel the chi's of tens, then hundreds of Aeesu-jin as they flooded the complex. The mission had turned from a simple infiltration and escape -- in and out -- to yet another life and death situation.

All it took was a single Aeesu-jin discovering him, hearing him bang through the vents, and they would be all over him. Though he was healing well -- his ribs had probably knitted themselves by now -- he was still far from his usual strength. There was no doubting, it was fact. If his position was found, he would die. There was just too many of them.

But he couldn't stay in one place. As he passed a grating that ran parallel to the ceiling of a room, he saw through the thin slats that there were three Aeesu-jin in it, tearing up furniture, looking through closets, looking under cabinets. The entire complex was being systematically searched, and surely it would be only be a matter of time before they noticed and checked the air vents. Feeling overwhelmed, Gohan had to grab his head and squeeze his eyes shut, covering his ears and holding his breath and trying to, if even for just a second, make himself forget everything. Imagine himself someplace safe and warm. Earth. Home. He could almost hear his mother calling him for dinner as he romped through the tree-tops.

But he opened his eyes, and the thought fled. He was back in the freezing, filthy vents, one hand holding tightly to the strap of his duffle-bag and the other dragging the rest of himself along as he tried to escape death.

Things were feeling bleak. He didn't even really know where he was going. In the turmoil, he had lost his sense of direction and had forgotten which way would take him out, and which way would take him deeper into the Underground.

Reaching out to feel the chi around him, he felt the millions of Aeesu-jin milling around behind him, but ahead, perhaps fifty feet, there was none. He was going the right way, after all. Just a little longer and he would be out of there. And he still had the food. This was, perhaps, one of the few times that something was going to go right for him.

When he reached the end of the vent, however, it wasn't quite as good as it had seemed. The vent came to a dead-end right above a room. On the opposite side of the room as the vent he was in was a window. On the other side of the window was freedom, but getting there would be difficult, for the room was not deserted.

Inside were two Tahch-jin. They looked freakishly similar, like identical twins, though their auras were so different that Gohan was sure he would never mistake one for another. One seemed to radiate fear, hesitation but also pride. This was the Tahch-jin he met before, when he was rescuing Garlic and Freeza, the boy was certain of it. Joru Le'armont. The other radiated something almost chilling, cold, calculated, but also excited and gleeful. Almost like a child. As Gohan watched, the timid Tahch-jin wrung his hands together and whispered to the other, "But what if they don't find him? We don't even know how he got in!"

"You said he was in the kitchen, right?" the other said, "He probably just wanted something to eat. It doesn't matter, he won't escape. We'll capture him this time." He then chuckled, making Gohan shiver, "I can't wait! I can't wait to meet him in person! Look at me, brother, I'm actually giddy!"

"But Henning, brother, why do we need him alive? That boy is dangerious! It's so much extra work to capture him, when we could have him killed-"

The man named Henning looked shocked, "Just let the guards kill him? That would be so....anticlimatic! It would be like you taking your most preciousy finds and throwing it into space before you even expiriance it! No, I simply must kill him myself. I want to see him die with my own eyes or there would be no sense in looking for him in the first place. If I simply wanted him dead, we could just destroy the whole planet. No, no, I have to do it. A creature like this has to have a long, beautiful, drawn out death; a worthy end to his eventful life. Nothing else will do."

Inside the air vent, Gohan stopped breathing. He held perfectly still. He was scared.

Who was this man? The way he talked -- referring to death and torture as though they were the most intricate forms of art -- just seemed so very wrong. Gohan was actually a large fan of the arts, had studied art and music since he could read, and it was one of his most favored subjects. But this man, Henning, destroyed it. Perverted a beautiful thing and twisted and mutilated it until is was something sick and reviled and inhuman.

The notion was actually offending to Gohan. It was taking one of the few things he still had sanctity in and turning it into the very thing he detested. Pleasure in pain and death, torment and torture and anguish. This man, whoever he was and wherever he came from, was fast-shaping into something the boy all-together despised.

His anger started to rise.

* * *

Joru stared at his brother in horror and disbelief. He had always been hesitant when it came to supporting Henning's grisly hobbies, and at this moment he had half a mind to go directly against his siblings wishes and ordering _his_ sentries to kill the boy on sight. Not only would it be for the Tahch-jin's best interest, but for Son Gohan's as well. A quick death at the hands of an Aeesu-jin would be merciful when compared to the one Henning had planned.

Joru could hardly endure listening to his brother kill his adult captives, he didn't think he could stand hearing the death screams of a child echoing through his space ship. Henning was known to keep his victims alive for weeks, and more than once Joru wondered how many more deaths he could listen to before he went mad. Insanity was a constant fear for him, for once he lost his ability to reason he was sure he would start to act like his brother.

"But what if he does escape?" Joru asked, desperate to change the subject, "You can't be serious about postponing our plans for your whim-"

"Destroying this _planet _is a whim, brother," Henning reminded, "_Your_ whim. Can't you let me have fun, too?"

Joru became silent. He didn't like having his brother say such things. It wasn't a _whim_ that he destroy this planet, it was an unselfish act meant to better the universe. He didn't bother saying so.

"But I have this place entirely surrounded. There's no way my prize is escaping. If you insist, I suppose I can be content with just the boy; we can destroy the planet as soon as I-"

He was interrupted by a loud clattering, and both Tahch-jin turned to see the grate over the air-conditioning vent fall to the floor. From the hole it left behind, Son Gohan emerged. To Joru, he looked dangerous. To Henning, he was a marvel.

"Why me?" The boy asked, his ink-black eyes fixed on Henning. He was a good three feet shorter than the Tahch-jin, but for whatever he lacked in size, he made up for in intensity. Joru hid behind his brother.

Henning was fearless, "Because you are what I've been searching for my entire life. You're perfect."

The boy's face slackened in surprise, "You don't even know who I am."

"I know more than you think, little Saiya-jin Son Gohan."

The surprise on the boy's face seemed to melt into cold resolve, then, as though he suddenly heard something the Tahch-jin didn't, his head whipped around to look at the door. He looked hesitant, alarmed, and if Joru hadn't seen him fight on a first hand basis, he wouldn't have thought the kid was any harm at all.

Turning back to look at the Tahch-jin brothers, he said, "You're insane."

Without another word he blasted the window open, filling the room with a rain of gleaming glass. The boy flew out the broken window frame, and, carrying his bag, was gone in a flash of chi. Hardly a second later, the door flew open and six Aeesu-jin entered, the largest saying, "Sir, the complex has been thoroughly searched and we could find no trace of the boy."

Henning started chuckling, then all out laughing.

Noticing the broken window the Aeesu-jin asked, "What happened, here?"

Talking over his brother's laughter Joru said, "He was here."

"Son Gohan? Here? Do you want us to go after him?"

Joru shook his head, "He's long gone by now."

As tears rolled down his cheeks, Henning said through excited, happy gasps, "Good, good, this is great! He's perfect!"

Joru shook his head, "Henning, dear brother, you scare me sometimes."

**To be continued.....**  
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	19. CM19

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 19**

Flying to his waiting capsule house, his duffel bag of food slung over his shoulder, Gohan knew he should feel victorious. He had gotten into the Underground safely, eaten, packed away a large amount of food for later, and gotten out without having to fight even once. He had absolutely won. Score one for him.

But he couldn't even smile as he held onto the strap of his bag with a white-knuckled grip. He couldn't stop thinking about Henning Le'Armont. He could feel his heart pounding; his surroundings were a blur as he flew over them, not seeing anything and not paying attention to his direction.

He felt deeply troubled.

He had met a fair share of dictators, murderers and sadists. Hired killers, planet destroyers, mad men bent on revenge and a fair share of people who didn't know any other way to solve a conflict than with violence. But never before had someone actually pre-planned capturing and torturing their victim, of drawing out their death as long as possible for no other reason than to watch them die. Gohan liked there to be reasons why people did things, even if it was nothing more than two wrongs _did_ make a right in their view.

Before just fifteen minutes ago, Gohan had never known who Henning was. They had never met, never spoken, and as far as the boy knew, they had absolutely no dealings with each other before. Gohan had certainly never done anything to the Tahch-jin to warrant such.....

Gohan was certain it wasn't revenge. Henning didn't seem vengeful, or even angry. In fact, he looked happy. Excited. Eager to inflict pain on anyone he could.

The boy shivered, suddenly feeling cold. He was in no mood to return to camp, where Bojack, Freeza and Garlic awaited. He was in no mood to talk, or even stop.

He altered his flight away from camp, angling off into an unknown direction, and blasted his chi around him to fly as fast as he could. As the wind flew over his body, he tried to imagine it blowing away his thoughts, his memories, reducing him to nothing more than an object in perpetual motion, possessing no thought process other than movement.

Looking up, he realized it was still morning. He hadn't been underground for more than a few hours, and the sun had yet to reach the center of the sky. Looking at the ground spanning in front of him, he began to realize that planet Aeesu was actually quite pretty. The ground, a tan under the still young sun, was dotted with tufts of light purple grass, some so tall one could get lost if they ventured into it. The sky was gentle violet, while the white clouds seemed to be waiting along the horizon so they didn't interupt the perfect expanse of empty space above it.

The mountains were long gone behind him, and ahead there was no further expanses of elevation. It was all clear, flat plains, filled with grass and low-hanging trees and occational herds of creatures Gohan had never seen before. More than once, he even flew over clusters of the strange deer/armadillo creatures Bojack had tried eating.

Something glittering far ahead drew his attention, and when he squinted, he saw a thin stream of water. At first, he mistook it for a mirage. The plains certainly weren't the hottest area Gohan had ever visited, but the unobstructed sun was rearing down its full power across the ground below. Gohan could smell the moisture the ground gave off in the heat.

No, he smelled moisture, but it wasn't the ground. As he continued flying, he saw it wasn't a mirage. It was water. Real, live water, shimmering under the perfect sky. A lake of some sort? The closer he got, the larger the body of water looked, and as he neared the shore, worn away by water into rocky craigs, he realized it must be a sea, if not an ocean. He couldn't see the other shore. It was beautiful.

He landed at a beach, the blue-purple waves lapping at gray, silky sand with quiet watery sounds. The sun had warmed the sand, and on impulse Gohan set his bag of food aside, pulled off his boots, and rolled up his pant legs. He waded into the water up to his calves, his tail curling up like a question mark behind his back like it used to when he was little. The acute frightfulness of Henning started to dull, like a vision under a mirror covered with dust.

Gohan started running through the water, jumping over and through the knee high waves as they bore down apon his legs. It felt good to run, to leave it all behind and only concentrate on what's beneath your feet, or ahead. The solid shore beneath his feet suddenly vanished and when his toes found bottom, he was up to his hips in water. His pants were soaked. He laughed.

He didn't care. He continued to run, stopping, slidding on the silky sand, doubling back to make sure his food was still safe, then leaping across the water again. Jumping, spinning, splashing, little droplets of water filling the air like a shower of crystals, it was almost threaputic in its spledor. And when the boy finally had enough merryment, he stopped, soaking wet, panting, a smile still on his face as water dripped from his hair and down his forehead and off the tip of his nose

He was drenched, but refreshed.

He waded his way onto shore, stripped off his gi, and lay in the sun beside his duffel bag. His clothes lay beside him to dry. He laces his hands behind his head and closed his eyes as the sun kissed his cheeks and the wind toyed with his hair. Peace and quiet. Bliss.

He did know he had fallen asleep until he woke up again. The sun was far down on the horizon, just begining to set. He was hungry again, and he fearlessly ate to his fill from his newly collected stash. He still had pehaps two days worth of food left. Life was good.

He watched the sun set, until it was nothing but a few hot pink streaks in the sky, before decided to head back to camp. He felt good. Great even. He had needed a break, and a trip to the beach--fun in the sun, cool water, good food--if even for a day was renewing. For now. He would feel better when this whole situation was over. At the moment, he was confident it would be over. Perhaps even soon.

His clothes were dry, but stiff from the water and dirty from the sand. So was he. It didn't matter. A bout with the washing machine for his gi, and a nice relaxing bath was all it would take to rectify the whole day's activities. Starting flying, he was almost giddy, and looking forward to telling Sunow and Forester about the beach. Perhaps they could go there tomarrow. Maybe even camp there tonight.

By the time his capsule house came into sight, the sky was totally dark. The camp fire hadn't been lit, and all the lights were off in his house. The site looked deserted.

Suddenly cautious, the boy lowered his flight until he was hugging the ground, as silent as possible. What could have happened? Could they have been attacked? By who? The Tahch-jin? Heng? Backlash? The number of enemies was too high for the boy's liking, and as he came over a hill, staying in the shadows and moving as silently as the wind, he swore that if anything happened to Sunow and his family he would never forgive himself.

He slipped up behind his house, his senses as sharp as they could get. His pupils were dialated and his ears were picking up sounds of lowing herd animals miles away. He smelled the grass under his feet, and the comforting Earth-smell on his house. He felt the chi of every living animal within a mile radius.

Oddly enough, Sunow, his children, and his original three companions were on the camp site. Alone. Gohan could feel their chi.

He set his bag down. Cautiously, suspitiously, he bent over at the waist, putting his finger tips on the ground. On hands and feet, his tail curved above him for balance, he crept along the edge of his house, keeping himself pressed against the wall. Something wasn't right. Why hadn't they started the camp fire? Why were they whispering so quietly he could hardly hear them.

When he saw them, they were standing together, talking in hushed tones. No one else was to be seen. It was great relief. So great, his knees felt weak and he let his breath out; he held his hand against his chest to steady his heart. Sunow was okay. Everyone was okay. The previous joy he had felt about the beach returned to him. For now, everything was okay.

Emerging from the dark, he called to them, "Hey! What's going on? Why isn't the fire-"

"Where the hell have you been?!" Bojack yelled. Gohan froze in his tracks as the Biraju-jin stormed toward him.

The boy started walking backwards, more startled and confused than frightened, "I....I was-"

His back bumped into the side of his house, and as soon as he stopped Bojack swooped in and grabbed the front of his gi, slamming him hard against the wall behind him, "You were gone _all_ _day!_ What happened? You idiot! What the hell were you thinking, going in there alone?! Do you want to get killed!? Just say so and I'd be _real_ happy to-"

"Bojack-san, _please!_" Sunow said shrilly, "He's not dead! Don't hurt him!"

The Biraju-jin paused, looking at the Aeesu-jin, then threw the boy against the side of the house before releasing him and stormed across the camp. He didn't leave, but paced and fumed further away. Gohan sank to the ground in relief that that was _all_ Bojack had done to him.

Forester, of all people, came forward and offered him a hand. The Gohan greatfully took it, and the Aeesu-jin boy helped him to his feet, whispering as he did so, "Bojack's been storming around for nearly six hours now like that. He's really mad you were gone so long and kept saying you were going to get him killed. What does he mean by that, anyway?"

"Nevermind," Gohan said, rubbing the arm that had struck the house the hardest. He would probably develope a bruise by the morning. The side of his house where he had struck was damaged, as well.

Within fifteen minutes, the boy had gotten a good, red blaze going, using the firewood he had collected yesterday.

With a sudden thought, Gohan hurried off into the dark, returning a second later with his duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Emptying the contents from the bay by the light of the open fire, Gohan picked up one of the more filled containers from the pile and called to Bojack, "The mission _was_ successful, either way. Here, see for youself."

He tossed the container to the Biraju-jin, who opened it. Within, he found tender little rolls of thin-cut meats stuffed with vegetables and butter. They had gotten cold, but still looked and smelled appetizing. Suddenly being seized with an attack of hunger, Bojack pulled out one of the delicate little morsels and popped it into his mouth. It was devine. He crammed two more into his mouth, and after swallowing them, another two. They were simply delicious.

"I guess," Bojack said after swallowing, "you did one thing right."

Gohan pretended not to hear the remark as he sat and opened a container for himself--long, thin custard stroodles with powdered sugar on top. His mouth watered and he began to eat his own share, each bite a tastatious sensation of joy. For whatever other monstrosities the Tahch-jin produced, they sure knew how to live it up when it came to food.

No one said anything for a while. Sunow went into Gohan's house and emerged again with a pitcher of water and an arm-full of cups, which, when filled with water, he gave to Freeza, Garlic, Forester and Eesei; keeping one for himself.

The seven of them congragated around the fire, Bojack and Gohan eating, the others sipping quietly.

Gohan spoke, "I know who is going to destroy the planet."

Everyone's eyes slid across their face to look at him.

"What?" Garlic asked, "Who?"

Gohan took another bite, chewed, swallowed, said, "The Tahch-jin. I overheard them talking--arguing--about when they wanted to blow it up."

"What's holding them back?" Freeza wondered, "If they have the means, why not do it."

"Only one of them, Joru Le'Armont, seems to want to destroy it right now. I met him once before, when we broke into the Tahch-jin fortress. He doesn't seem to be much of a warrior. Too skiddish. From what I heard, he just wants to get this project over and done with."

"How many Tahch-jin are there?" Sunow asked, leaning forward and setting his now empty cup on the ground.

"Only two," Gohan said, adding, "I think. They're brothers. The other's name is Henning Le'Armont. He's the one holding things up."

Garlic tilted his chin upward in thought, his eyes searching the stars. He mused, "Why wait, I wonder." He lowered his gaze again and asked the boy, "Do you know?"

"Yes," the boy said boldly, then more shyly, "Henning, the Tahch-jin, is looking for me."

"What would anyone want with you?" Forester asked, rocking back on his heels.

Gohan shrugged, "I don't know. Until I saw him just today, I didn't even know he existed."

There was a moment of silence as everyone had a chance to mull over the news.

"Well," Garlic said, "What do we do now?"

"That's obvious," Freeza said, "We kill the Tahch-jin."

"When?" Sunow asked.

No one answered right away. Sunow opened his mouth as though he intended to undo what he had said, not feeling comfortable with the way the conversation was going, but quickly realized such a thing was impossible.

Finally, Bojack said with a full mouth, "Three days."

Freeza snorted, "I would have thought _you_ would be eager to attack tonight."

Bojack grinned viciously, popped open a second container of food--after finishing the first--and said, "I'm in no hurry to finish this mission. What do you think will happen when we do? Just think about it. Chances are that Larkas guy will just send us straight back to hell again. I say three days should be enough vacation. Anyone think differently."

For many reasons, no one else came up with an argument.

Bojack and Gohan chewed quietly, all of them played with their own thoughts. After two hesitations, Gohan finally said, "I'm worried about Doctor Koda."

"He was a good man," Sunow said, "One of the best."

Gohan looked pointedly at him, "You make him sound like he were dead."

"He's enemies with Heng, and has been in the Underground for nearly two days," Sunow said, lowering his head, "I'm just saying-"

He didn't bother finishing. Each word spoken seemed to make the boy look older. The vibrant look in his eyes, which seemed to have sprung up in the past couple of days--a look of almost childish glee, like a boy who had never been through the things Gohan had--was starting to die. Shrink away like an old man with leprosy, watching his own limbs as they vanish to rot and decay. His tail lay torpid on the ground behind him, occationally trying to sway, but only succeeding in dragging itself back and forth across the dirt.

"He's still alive," Gohan said. "I think before we attack the Tahch-jin....I'd like to go looking for him."

"Back Underground?!" Sunow choked on his water.

"You have a death wish, bozu?" Bojack roared, "How many times are you going to tempt fate before it decides to kill you?"

"I've been doing that all my life," Gohan said, "But there's nothing anyone can say to make me change my mind. I'll be careful. I don't want to die, honestly. I just want to make sure he's okay."

"Idiot's going to get himself killed," Bojack murmured.

"And take us all down with him," Freeza added, sipping his water.

With a hiss of frustration, Bojack stood up from the fire and flew off into the darkness. Gohan watched the fire, the red flames reflecting in his ebony eyes, his tail held tenderly in his hands, his mind made up. He would give himself a couple of days to finish recovering, then he would do it. He would look for the doctor.

An hour later, he went into his house for the night, bathed, put his clothes in the wash, and went to bed.

* * *

The next day was blissfully uneventful. In the morning, Gohan was the first to awaken, refreshed, clean, high-spirited. He dressed in his white and black house clothes and half an hour later his stomach was full of delicious, pilfered Tahch-jin breakfast. Somehow knowing he had stolen it from Henning made it taste better.

He carefully went through his house, making sure all the lights were off and all the drawers were closed -- a habit instilled in him by his mother -- he swept up his kitchen, did his breakfast dishes, then exited his house. The sun had already risen, but its light was still gentle yellow. Welcoming. He hit the button on the outside of his door, and his house returned to a capsule. He carefully tucked it back in its case and put it in his pants pocket.

Forester sat up, blinking sleep from his eyes, "Son Gohan?"

The Saiya-jin boy smiled, "Good morning."

"'Mornin'." Forester mumbled, rolling onto his knees then rising to his feet.

"You know," Gohan said, "All of you could sleep inside my house. It can't be comfortable sleeping outside."

Forester stretched, arched his back and pointed his tail far out behind him. When he spoke, he sounded more awake, "No, it's fine. It's fun sleeping under the stars."

Gohan nodded, he understood. After his first weary steps out of his sheltered life and into the Outside World when he was four, he had loved sleeping under the vast, diamond crested black sky.

"You put you house away."

"Hm? Oh," Gohan said, "I was thinking we could relocate our camp site."

Forester suddenly looked concerned, "Why? Do you think we might have been found out?"

"No, nothing like that," Gohan assured him, "I just found a really beautiful place and thought you guys would like to see it."

The Aeesu-jin boy's eyes suddenly lit up, "Can you show me now?"

Gohan cast a concerned look at Sunow, who was still asleep and Eesei who was curled up against him. He was remembering how violent Bojack got last night when Gohan was gone for the day, "Shouldn't be wait-"

"It'll be okay," Not it was Forester's turn to be reassuring, "Wait just a moment."

He walked quietly to his sleeping father and shook him awake. Gohan didn't hear what the Aeesu-jin were saying to each other -- they were speaking in pure Aeesu-go, the Aeesu-jin language. Forester asked a question, and Sunow, his eyes still closed, nodded his head 'yes' sleepily.

Forester returned to Gohan's side, "Dad said we could."

Gohan hesitated, his tail nerviously snaked around his wrist twice before he caught it in his hand, soothing it with his thumb.

"Come on, you can afford to be bad sometimes."

The Saiya-jin boy followed the Aeesu-jin boy into the air, soon picking up speed to lead the way. He didn't bother telling the other that being bad around his mother got him yelled at, being bad around Piccolo-san got him scorned, and being bad around Tousan....was just something he didn't do.

The boy was just glad to have some company.

**

Bojack watched the two teens flying off into the distance, his hand cupped over his eyes to shield them from the glaring new sun.

"Where are you going, bozu?"

When they were barely in sight, he began running after them, following the vapor trails they left in their wake. He wasn't letting that troublesome boy out of his sight.

**

Forester was speachless at the incredible sight before him. As far as his eyes could see, there was sparkling, spraying, purple-violet, gently siddling up to the gray, silty shore. The good weather that had been present the past couple of days was shining out its radiance, the white morning sun intertwining with the rocks that lined the water, shadow and light worked together for once.

"It's....," he let the statement drop. Words were failing him.

Gohan smiled, "There's some really neat cliffs over there," he pointed, "I flew over them yesterday. Come on."

The two boys ran along the shore, leaping over rocks, their eyes cast seaward as the water's sparkling reflected into their eyes. Up ahead, they saw the cliffs, not too tall, but sharp and stern, dark, menacing, but intrecately beautiful from years of carving by the water, green from the moss. Almost on cue, as their eyes absorbed the sheer beauty of them, a huge wave came crashing against their rocky surface, exploding into a fine spray of water droplets and filling the air with a collossal, watery crash.

A cold, wet breeze attacked the two from the force of the waves, covering their face with diamond water droplets.

Forester gasped, then smiled. Gohan's shoulders shook with silent laughter, then suddenly, on impulse, he took off running, his tail waving behind him like a banner, kicking up sand under his feet and laughing, calling for Forester to join him. The Aeesu-jin boy readily complied.

They ran, side by side, their hearts soaring and their voices sounding out there joy with yells, whoops and bursts of laughter. As Gohan ran, he stripped out of his nice, starched white shirt and nice, clean black pants. Down to his boxers, he ran into the water, diving beneath its cool surface with a splash. Forester was right on his heels, pouncing on Gohan's back and forcing him back underwater as he tried to rise. Gohan lost his air in an explotion of bubbled from his nose and mouth and was unable to stop before he started laughing underwater.

He broke through the water's surface sputtering and coughing and laughing as water came came out his nose. He readily returned the favor to Forester, forcing his head under the surface before he could get a breath and holding him under for a second before allowing him back up.

They laughed and choked, splashing water in eachother's eyes and scrubbing at their own to clear them to see the next attack. When Forester playfully whipped at him with his tail, the Saiya-jin boy dove underwater and began swimming further out to sea, hugging the mud, silt and sand beneath him and darting glances back over his shoulder to see where his persuer was. Up ahead, under the violet-blue haze of water, swirling sand and colorful bits of coral and sea-weed, there was a sudden decline in the ground as the body of water deepened abruptly.

Gohan paddled to the lip of the decline and looked down. His eyes widened at the sight. Something bumped against his shoulder and the boy was only half-aware that Forester was by his side, also admiring the underwater sight before them.

It was a coral reef. A panorama of incredible, nearly inconcievable hues and shapes and sizes and textures. Blazing orange formations shaped like abstract castles, searing hot pink pillars, covered with burnt red barnacles. Drab gray rocks were covered in shocking blue algea, while neon yellow whisps of underwater plant life flowed back and forth softly. And there were fish, some ice-blue and flashing like quick silver, while others were huge, the size of horses, colored ink black with dazzling lime stripes. Schools of fish, moving as one, predators, odd looking little maroon fish with huge fins running down their spines, long, thin eel-like creatures with no fins but ample teeth.

An underwater paradise.

The boy's returned to the surface for water, but for some reason they couldn't return to look again. It was too magical. Unspoken, they began heading back to shore, diving head first in and out of the water like dolphins, making strange animal noises as they were airborn and blurbing streams of bubbles behind them as they submerged again.

When they reached the shore, they collapsed onto the warm, sun-heated sand, exhausted. Breathing heavily and still damp, they turned their eyes to the sky.

"Do you see shapes in the clouds, too?" Forester asked, almost quietly, almost shyly.

Gohan smiled saddly, thinking back to a time a few years ago he and his father had laid next to eachother on the grass, pointing out what they saw in the sky, "Yeah, all the time."

"Good, I thought I was going crazy."

Gohan laughed quietly, and they baked in the now noon sun, savoring the warm feel of light as it lay across their bodies like a blanket.

Peaceful silence, then, "What's your papa like?"

Gohan turned his head, "What?"

"You get a wierd look in your eye whenever I talk about my Papa. I thought that you might be thinking of yours."

"He's dead."

"I thought so."

Gohan sighed.

"Well?" Forester asked.

"Well, what?"

"Aren't you going to tell me how he died?"

Gohan closed his eyes, "I don't want to. I'm happy right now."

Forester threw a handfull of sand at him.

Brushing it off his arm Gohan asked, "What was that for?"

"Tell me."

"No."

He threw another handfull of sand.

"Please stop."

"Tell me."

Gohan sighed, "In a battle."

"What?"

"He died in a battle. Against a guy named Cell."

"Wierd name."

Gohan gave a dry laugh, "Wierder face."

Silence.

"How'd he die?"

"I already told you."

"Oh, please."

"I did."

"Be specific."

"Please stop."

"Tell me."

Pause. Gohan's tail twined around his thigh.

"He sacraficed himself to save me and our planet."

"Sounds like something your dad papa would do. Is your whole family a bunch of crazy strong people out to save the world?"

Gohan snorted.

"How?"

No answer.

"How did he sacrafice himself?"

No answer.

Forester raised a handful of sand threateningly.

"Don't."

"Tell me."

No answer.

Forester poked Gohan in the arm.

"Tell me."

"He teleported the enemy off the planet."

"Why?"

"Because Cell was going to self-destruct."

"Why?"

No answer.

"Your papa was winning?"

No answer. Gohan's eyes were squeezed tightly together and his cheek twitched with remembered grief and rage.

"Alright, fine," Forester said, noting the other's reaction, "Where did he teleport with Cell to?"

"The North Kaio's planet."

"You papa knows a Kaio?"

"Knew. Kaio-sama died in the same explotion."

"Hah! That's the way I want to go! If I'm going to die, I'm taking a god with me!"

Gohan caught himself cracking a smile, bit it vanished when both boys sat up, startled, to the sound of deep, baritone laughter. Looking over their shoulders, they were horrified and surprised to find Bojack sitting on a large rock not far from them. He was laughing heartily, cruely, his head tilted back.

"What's so funny?" Forester asked.

"Your _dad_ was the one who killed the North Kaio?!" He directed his question to Gohan, "Then I should thank him! He's the reason I was able to escape from that Star the four Kaios had sealed me in!"

Gohan scowled, his tail slashing wildly at the sand. Forester actually saw his hands shaking at his sides. His lips were white and bloodless, his eyes wide but shadowed under his brows as much as his emotions. His throat was constricting.

With a forced sound, "Nng!" the boy launched himself off the ground, oblivious of everything but the anger that welled toward this man that dared to laugh at his father's death. When he was two feet from Bojack, the blue giant raised his fist and struck the boy across the face, sending him headfirst into the sand, where he slid six feet before stopping.

"You have a bad memory, bozu. Have you forgotten my warning?" Bojack raised himself to his feet, as though intending to attack the boy to follow through with his threat. As Gohan pulled his aching body up to a standing position, realization of what he had done sank in. Fear was on his face, but also stubborness. Anger. Bojack grinned, "Stupid kid."

With that said, the Biraju-jin turned and walked away.

"You're such an asshole!" Forester yelled after him.

Bojack waved over his shoulder, refusing to make a comment.

* * *

Joru leaned over his brother's shoulder from where he sat in his chair, "What is that?"

Henning handed the contraption to his brother, who took it and immediately started inspecting it. It was a plastic box, rectangular, perhaps a little bulky. Across the obvious front spanned a small series of buttons -- two circular ones and one long rectangle -- and above them was a small screen filled with zeroes. Goodness, a nine-digit number could fit there!

"Well? What is it?"

"Truthfully, I don't know what it's called. It's the newest Aeesu-jin technology," Henning took the device back, "More a prototype, but I didn't want to wait for them to finish it."

"What does it do?"

Grinning like a child with a new toy, Henning said, "It's rather amazing. It detects chi. Watch."

He tapped at a few buttons, then pointed the device at his brother. The machine whirred to life with a mechanical beep, then another beep as it went about its task. A longer, more melodic strand of beeps followed and a number started flashing across the screen.

Grinning, Henning said, "Unfortunately, as I said, it's just a prototype. This model only reads numbers in fives, but I'm sure they're working on more accurate numbers." He read off the number that signified Joru's chi.

Joru cocked his head to a side, "Is that good?"

"I don't know," Henning said, shaking his head, "I'm still trying to figure what the blasted thing is. I'm sure it's good, you're a Tahch-jin."

Joru nodded, "How many of these things do we have?"

Henning continued experimentally pushing buttons on the object, saying, "We stole a crate of them from Heng's personal shipment, so I'm sure there must be at least thirty."

"You know how to get ahold of Heng's personal shipments but you haven't found Heng himself yet?"

Henning, pausing his tinkering with the unnamed device, blinked almost innocently and said, "You _still_ want me to find Heng?"

Joru, in an uncharacteristic loss of temper, grabbed the device from his brother's hands and threw it across the room to shatter against the wall, "Yes! That's the whole reason we're here! To destroy all the political leaders of then destroy the planet!"

Henning stared at his brother in a mixture of surprise and concern, both of which slowly melted in collected neutrality, "Joru, that's the reason _you_ came here. I know you want this planet gone, and to tell the truth, so do I, but please try to look at it my way. The mission is boring to me. Now, I go along with you to your dull archeological digs-"

"I let you pursue your passions, too!"

"-true. Which means we compromise and work together and pursue eachother's happiness as well as our own. But on this planet," Henning pointed to the ground, "we can both pursue our own interests. Please, now, let's work together to accomplish our goals just like the brothers we are."

Embarrassed he had lost his temper, Joru nodded, "You're right. I appologize for breaking your....thing."

Henning patted him on the shoulder, "There's plenty where that came from. Come, now, let's get a snack."

The other nodded and the brothers exited the room--Joru stopping by the rest room to thoroughly wash his hands first to avoid eating any sort of unpleasant bacteria.

* * *

It was the next day already.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Sunow asked one more time as he and Gohan stood outside the air vents leading into the Underground he had found earlier that week.

Tugging at his armband, perhaps stalling subconsciously, Gohan said, "Yes, but you really shouldn't worry. I'll be careful, I promise."

Sunow shook his head as he watched the boy pull the grate off its frame, "Perhaps you shouldn't go through the air vents the entire way. The enemy -- Kami knows which one, but surely one of them -- is bound to have found out that's the way you got in."

Gohan nodded, breathing deeply to try to prepare himself. He wasn't really looking forward to going back in, but he just _had_ to know if the doctor was all right. It was eating him alive, "I know. I was going to only use this as a way in, then climb out somewhere deserted and walk the halls. That's probably the last place anyone will look for me."

"Hidden in plain sight?"

"It's bound to work."

"I sure hope so."

"So do I."

Unable to come up with anything else to say, the boy squeezed into the vents.

"Promise you'll be careful?" the Aeesu-jin asked the boy's tail as it vanished within.

"I promise."

Sunow closed the vent behind him.

* * *

"General Kokoschka, sir?" a tall, young Aeesu-jin asked from his seat at sentry duty. He was incredibly tall for his age, but had yet to fill, making his skinny body look like it would break if knocked over. His entire body was crisp white, except for his lips, which were a deep crimson. His face was so smooth and blemishes, he looked like a porcelain doll.

"What is it, Furim?" a huge, peach Aeesu-jin asked, running his hand mindlessly along the twisted gazelle-like horns that swept out behind his head. He was dead bored.

"Why are we even _doing_ this, still? It's mindless labor that a computer could do while we're out doing more important jobs-"

Kokoschka raised his hand to silence the youth, "On the record, I must say you should be glad to be on this job. It seems nearly all the men Henning-sama sends on missions these days end up being killed."

"I know....," Furim agreed sadly. He also knew his fighting skills were pretty lacking; he hadn't spent much of his twenty-six years training.

"Off the record, however, I have to agree this is perhaps one of the dullest assignments I've ever been on," the larger Aeesu-jin readjusted his seating to be more comfortable. He typed a few codes into his console before returning his attention to the young Aeesu-jin, "I thought that being a sentry for the mysterious Tahch-jin would be interesting. Guess I was wrong."

"It is unfortunate, sir, and-"

"But as for your question, we are doing this because at the moment, it's the only thing Henning can think of to try to find that Saiya-jin boy he's suddenly taken an interest to."

"But how are these things going to help?" Furim held up one of the prototype chi-detectors Henning had given them.

Kokoschka shook his head, "I don't know. Henning just said to contact him if this thing beeped over anything in the air ducts of the Underground."

"Hm?"

"I said-"

"No, no, shh, shh!"

The large Aeesu-jin became silent for a moment, then asked, "What is it?"

"Right when you said that," the youth said in amazement, "The thing started flashing numbers."

"What? Let me see...."

"Sir? I think something is in the air ducts even as we speak."

Kokoschka was already punching in a direct link to Henning and his brother over his communicator.

* * *

Heng looked up from his crimson drink as one of his secretaries tore into Heaven, breathing heavily. One of the large Aeesu-jin sitting at his right hand rose to reprimand him, but Heng cut his sharp tongue off with a gesture.

"News!" The secretary shouted, then standing more upright said, "News about those aliens who disgraced your holy name!"

Heng sat forward in his throne, setting his goblet of wine on the arm, "Speak."

The secretary looked back out the door as though temporarily wondering how he had gotten inside, then started talking rapidly, enunciating, "Sir! I picked up a series of coded radio signals half an hour ago and the instant I translated them I rushed here immediately!"

"Speak!" Heng commanded again, running one huge finger along a his favorite carving on his chair -- depicting half of an Aeesu-jin torso, bent at the hips, his long, sleek arms stretched above him. He was imagining himself killing that brutish blue alien with the fiery red hair. And that boy. Right behind these two came thoughts of killing the Off-planet with them, then the doctor. All of them, but especially the former two.

"Son Gohan! The boy! He's back in the Underground!" the secretary got enough control over himself to stop yelling, "The message was sent to some man named Henning, but where it was sent from or where it was going is impossible to say, but supposedly signs of him were picked up in the air vents on level 68 RJ."

Heng narrowed his eyes in thought, then turned to the Aeesu-jin sitting to his left, "Take as many men as needed and start a systematic search for him. Start at level 68 RJ and work your way out. I don't care if you have to search the entire Underground."

"But sir, that could take months!"

"Use those new contraptions you invented then! What are they called? Those things that detect chi?"

"We call them 'senko yukata chi scouters'."

"A ghastly name, but never mind that. Use them."

"What do we do if -- er, when -- we find him?" The Aeesu-jin asked, already getting to his feet.

Heng smiled, his large, fat lips separating to expose a missing tooth. The lines deepened around his eyes. He just wasn't meant to smile. He took a sip of wine, then, imaging his hand crushing the boy's head he answered, "Kill him."

* * *

Walking cautiously, but trying to avoid drawing attention to himself, Gohan made his way out of a secluded room -- in which he had climbed out of the air ducts, and into the halls of the Underground. His hands behind his back and his eyes focused on the ground, breezing his tail neutrally behind him. He was trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. It was a wasted charade. None of the Aeesu-jin seemed to notice him. By now, the Aeesu-jin knew aliens were on the planet, and the spectacle of seeing a Saiya-jin walk the halls freely was old news.

He didn't care. He was nervous as hell and jumpy, and if someone were to call to him, he was sure he would bolt like a startled deer. He remembered all too clearly Henning, and how he seemed so enflamed to find him so he could follow through with his perverse plans of pain and pleasure. Unpleasant to think about, worse, Gohan was sure, to experience.

Then, of coarse, Heng was out there somewhere, running around with his own personal vendettas, probably more interested in killing Bojack than himself, but would probably leap at the chance to get him just the same.

Backlash was out there, as well. Though he hadn't heard from them recently, they were no doubt keeping their eyes open for him as well.

Gohan was a normally modest boy, happiest with people weren't addressing their full attention to him. Being the main attraction for two large branches of Aeesu-jin government and a duo of aliens who seemed to be devoting their time solely to finding and capturing him put him in an uncomfortable situation for many reasons.

He closed his eyes and shook his head.

He would just have to hope he didn't come into conflict with them.

He narrowed his eyes, reaching his senses out as far as they would go, searching for the good doctor's chi. At first, unable to find it, he came close to panic. The hairs of his tail prickled up so sharply they itched. What if he was wrong? What if the doctor _was_ dead, after all? What if......

Then he realized he just wasn't looking in the right direction. He as searching everything ahead of himself, behind, right, left and above. It was the way he always searched with looking for chi. There was definitely no sign of the doctor. It was only then that he realized he would have to search below as well, in the miles of tunnels beneath his feet.

He began searching again, gently sorting through one unfamiliar chi after another, brushing feathery, sensitive fingers over each person's aura. For a few tense minutes he held his breath while he found nothing, he felt a bleak, black, dark feeling sinking slowly from his heart to his stomach.

Then, finally, thankfully, he found the warm, slightly aged chi of the good doctor. He had found Doctor Koda.

He altered his coarse to head deeper into the Underground.

**

Deep. So deep, the air was actually heavy, weary, as though it felt it didn't belong. So deep it should have been dark. Dank. Cold. Oppressive.

It was well-lit and sanitary, just like all the other Aeesu-jin levels in the Underground. Cold, yes, but everything was cold. The light even looked cold. People's auras were cold. Like they were made of ice.

Gohan shivered and tried to concentrate on that one warm, familiar thing he could feel. He was close to the doctor now. Very close. It was only a matter of strategic turns before he would find him, safe, sound, and well hidden. His glowing Aeesu-jin chi was bright as ever, inviting, engaging, intelligent; whatever damage he had suffered from the Heng Aeesu-jin, it was healed now. There was no trace on his chi that he was hurt.

The boy was unable to fully concentrate on that small candle in the dark, however. On the higher levels -- the place Sunow called the 'Middle Class' area -- the Aeesu-jins that roamed the halls, pursuing their own personal tasks, hadn't paid him much mind. They ignored him, occasionally giving him cold glares at best.

Down here, though, in the Lower Class area, they were scary. Bulky, meaty, muscular even if they weren't tall, they were far more aggressive. Politeness seemed to be a foreign thing to them. They didn't just sneer at the boy, they lunged at him. As he passed an Aeesu-jin, well worn in by a rough life, the other actually lashed out at him with his long, thick tail, nearly catching the boy across the back of the head in a blow that would surely have rendered him unconscious if he hadn't felt it coming a second in advance.

When he looked over his shoulder at the passing Aeesu-jin, the other was continuing to walk away, as though nothing had happened at all.

The boy kept his guard at maximum, clumsily twining his tail around his waist to avoid the risk of some mean-spirited Aeesu-jin grabbing it. It felt odd there, awkward, and it messed up his balance more than it should have. It also seemed to have trouble staying there, for every time he passed a particularly dangerous looking Aeesu-jin, his tail wanted to unwind itself and lash viciously behind him.

It took a conscious effort to keep it in place.

Finally, Gohan came to a stop. He felt as though he were standing right next to the good doctor, and he started looking around, roving his eyes over all the large, battle-scared Aeesu-jin that mulled around him. He was so close he could almost smell the doctor. But where.... closing his eyes and leaning against a wall to avoid getting in the way of the Aeesu-jin, he concentrated. Behind?

Turning and placing his hands against the rough surface of the wall, he knew the doctor was on the other side. So close. Resisting the impulse to tear his way through the wall to reach the doctor, the boy walked along the wall, running one hand against it as he went, looking for a door.

When he found a door, however, it would not open for him. It was securely locked.

The boy steeled himself, he would _not_ be stopped now that he was this close. He looked to his left and his right, then over his shoulder. No one in sight. Sidling up to the door control panel, he tried to remember everything Bulma had taught him about breaking into computers. He slid his hand around the wall, tapping with his fingertips, before finding what he was looking for. With a quick swipe of chi, the panel of the wall had been removed, revealing the guts of the terminal's secretary. It was a wild mess of red, blue, green and yellow wires, all snarled around each other in tangles and knots.

Not becoming overwhelmed, he forked his fingers though the wired, going by feel for which wire was the one was seeking. His technical instincts were a wonder that surprised him, and his hand soon found something in particular. Pulling it out to see, it was a thick, textured green wire. He worked his hand back into the terminal's guts until he found a second cord he needed, this one coated with red.

Stripping the rubber coating off each wire with his thumbnail, he held the two raw wires together, saying a silent prayer. A blue spark jumped from one wire to the other, and with a swish the door opened. Quickly stuffing the wires back into the wall, and putting the wall panel back over the hole, the boy barely darted in through the door before it closed behind him. If he hadn't thankfully been able to keep his tail around his waist, it would probably have been caught in the door way.

That would have been unfortunate.

"Son Gohan? Son Gohan?!"

The boy turned to come face to face with his target. He had found the doctor at long last.

**To be continued.....**

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	20. CM20

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 20**

The good doctor hadn't always been a man of high status. His father, a Lower Class citizen, had been a secretary his whole life, catering to the Middle Class, always looking up through the glass cealing, never tasting its sweet sensations. He died young, fourty-three, leaving three children to fend for themselves. Koda's two siblings, Fiji and Karu, were younger than him.

Fiji was the youngest, and the cleverest of the three. Without the guidance of his father, he went in search of easy, quick money, and he found it in illegal narcotics. With his strong ambition, by the time three years had passed he supplied half the Lower Class Underground with any sort of illegal drugs: sedatives, stimulants, hallucinogetics, antidepressants, inhalents, psychodelics, depressants; anything the buyer wanted and was willing to pay for.

Fuji died at thirty-two during a dispute with his competition. Koda and his brother could not afford a funeral.

Karu, though the middle-child, was the largest of the three, and though he generally had a sweet personality, he was born with a mental defect, never letting him mature beyond age seven. Unable to function with his peers, he quit school and refused to leave the house for nearly ten years. At the death of his youngest brother his depression exploded into rage and he went on a strike for vengence and killed thirty Lower Class Aeesu-jin, swearing they had killed his brother. To escape the death sentence put on his head for his masacre, he ran away to space, to live the life of an Off-planet. Koda hadn't heard from him since.

The good doctor was the only man to make it. Despite the tainted name of his family, he survived through school with scholars, and was soon given his own class to teach. Though not as large as Karu, the doctor had always been plagued with a weight problem, but he carried it well, soon using his wide size to intimidate his class into co-operation, though he soon learned he simply didn't have what it took to teach the young. 

After trying out a few other fields of work, he finally found his calling in medicine. Within twenty years, he was serving not only Lower Class, but also Middle Class. Within thirty years, he was raking his fingernails at the Upper Class's floor. Thirty-five years of medicine, and he was living comfortable in the Upper Class, searving the beurocrates and the stuffy-nosed pompous mongers that never knew what hard work ment.

Never fully able to rid himself of the Lower Class blood that his lineage proclaimed, he kept a second home in the Lower Clas areas--on the sly--which he visited whenever he couldn't take 'the good life' anymore.

It was here, in his secret little get-a-way, that he had been hiding from Heng's fury over the passing days from the time he woke up, unconscious, in some stranger's home. With no clue where he was or why he was still alive, or if Son Gohan or the others were alive, he stumbled down one hall after another, deeper into the Underground, until he found himself in familiar Lower Class areas. Finding his home, he went inside and locked the door behind him.

That had been four days ago. He hadn't left since.

When his door swished open suddenly, he had been prepared to strike death to the intruder with his raised tail. He was more than mildly surprised to find Son Gohan standing in his doorway, his tail twined around his waist, looking behind him pensively as he was nearly caught in the closing door.

"Son Gohan?! Son Gohan?!" There was surprisingly little he cound find to say. _Are you okay? Where have you been? How did you escape Heng? Are the others okay?_

Once the boy heard his voice, he seemed to wilt in relief, his eyes seemed to be begging for what he beheld to be true, his tail untwined from his hips and rose behind his back in a question mark, "Doctor Koda-san?"

The doctor nodded.

**

"...so we're all living on the surface for now. Sunow-san and his kids will probably have to become Off-planets and find some other planet to live on. They just have to get ahold of a spaceship."

The doctor stood up from his chair, hands folded behind his back. He nodded, "And you? When do you intend to leave?"

The boy lowered his head, "Just as soon as we...get rid of the Tahch-jin and finish this mission. We attack tomarrow."

"Why are you still doing this?" the doctor asked in bewilderment, "Why are you still trying to save this planet?"

A bitter-sweet smile crossed the boy's face, "I have to. I can't explain everything, it's just...too complex. I'm not sure I understand it all myself."

The doctor nodded, there seemed little more to say. Both hesitated, nearly said something, then sighed in unison. The doctor began pacing, his large, talon feet thumping softly on the ground. The boy twined his tail around his hip and rested it in his hands, rubbing his thumb against it gently, smoothing the hairs down.

"So this is the Lower Class area?" Gohan said.

The doctor nodded, "It is."

"How did you wind up here?"

The doctor smiled proudly, "I used to live here."

The boy looked around at the small, two room apartment. The worn floor. The dim lights. It was the least kempt, worn down section of the Underground he had ever seen. He then thought of the large, clean, well-lit office the doctor worked in. "You must have worked really hard to get as far as you have."

"As far as I _had_ gotten, anyway. Something tells me I won't be working here any longer."

"I'm sorry," the boy said, his head lowering, his eyes centered downward, looking at his tail. The doctor may not be dead, but his life was over. Like Sunow and his children. Like Tousan. "I'm so sorry."

The doctor stopped pacing and looked across the room at the boy. Without a word, the Aeesu-jin approached him, his giant form hovering before the small Saiya-jin's body. The boy closed his eyes, irrationally expecting the Aeesu-jin to hit him. He would take it. He deserved it. He always did this to people, always ruined their lives. Always got them killed.

A large hand landed on his shoulder. He looked up, suddenly realizing how close the doctor was. How big. He subconsciously pushed his back against the wall behind him.

The doctor said, almost sternly, "It's alright."

After a sad, failed attempt to smile, the boy turned away.

"That cut on your cheek," the doctor continued saying, stooping his large, bulky body over to closer examine the boy's face, "It's healing up very well, even without stitches."

"Yeah, it's-," the boy paused, a frown forming in his forhead as the doctor continued to carefully inspect the now scarred-over slit on his cheek, his face hardly inches away,"-it's my Saiya-jin half. They tend to heal quickly."

"So I've heard. However, I would still like to take a closer look at your damanged rib cage. Going days with that kind of injury could lead to major resperitory problems."

"I'm all healed up now, no need," Gohan insisted, ducking out away from the wall and walking backwards from the Aeesu-jin.

"Then you have nothing to worry about."

The boy hesitated, as though considering vaulting out the door and escaping to the surface.

"You promised that after the meeting with Heng you would let me examine your side. Honest, I'll be as brief as possible. I'm only concerned. Son Gohan, you don't realize that you could die."

The boy continued to stand rooted in his spot, seeming to shrink where he stood; his tail moved slowly and mindlessly, as though its will was independent of his body. So small. Really nothing more than a child. Why was he the one on this mission? Why not a soldier? Or at least an adult. He really looked like he was shrinking.....

"Son Gohan? Gohan."

The boy responded to his name, his eyes slowly meeting the doctor's.

"I want to help. Please."

It seemed to take absolute will power, but finally the boy sagged in consent, "What do I have to do?"

"I had a friend stop by my office yesterday to get my medical bag. I'm afraid I don't have much in it, but if you'll wait just a moment, I'll get it."

**

His original fractured ribs had indeed healed, just as the cut on his face and the long scratch on his leg had, leaving nothing behind save little tender, miscolored areas. However, the doctor discovered, there were many other wounds to look at. His fight with the twenty attackers--Gohan was sure, now, that they had been Henning's men--had left extensive damage. His left arm had been fractured, his left knee had been dislocated, three ribs had been re-fractured and nearly all his knuckles had been half-smashed. 

Gohan was surprised to find there had been so much damage. He had only been sore for the first day. The next two days slightly stiff. But this last day he felt just fine. The doctor was equally amazed that such heavy damage could be healed in such a short time. He was sure, though giving such a diagnosis felt unreal, that if the boy's body continued to heal as fast as it was, he would be nearly back to new within two weeks. They both agreed that Saiya-jins must be one of the heartiest creatures alive.

An hour after arriving at the doctor's home, Gohan pulled his shirt on, grateful that the whole poking, proding, lack-of-personal-space part of the reunion with the good doctor was over. He pulled a small container from one of his pockets. Gratefully, he had remembered to pack a lunch before leaving his capsule house.

All akwardness between them deminished, and as Gohan ate the doctor sipped a cup of strong green tea and the two talked like old friends, discussing Aeesu-jin history and Aeesu-jin and Earth discoveries each planets scientists had made. 

The doctor was particularly shocked when the boy showed him his capsules, demonstrating their use by opening his motor-bike capsule right in the living room. Gohan was equally amazed to hear about the Aeesu-jin's first expiriments in developing a chamber that could instantly heal an injured person. The first steps toward the healing tanks that had repaired his father on Namek intime to make his crucial enterance into the Freeza fight.

"What's the rest of the Underground like?" Gohan finally asked, "How far does it go?"

"Sometimes I wonder if it ever stops," the doctor said, "There are millions of miles of tunnels, running all over--or under, I suppose I should say--the planet. I don't know how far down it goes. Some say all the way to the planet's core, but that's nonsense, for the heat that far down would burn an Aeesu-jin alive."

"Are there any areas below the Low Class?"

"Not dwellings, no. The Aeesu-jin refuse to live that far down, it gets too warm for our comfort. However, that's where most of the aliens live. There's been quite a few Saiya-jin coming in, lately. Apparently their planet is under alot of hard times, _Tsufuru-jin _civil wars and such, and they look for Aeesu-jin employment to not only get food to their families, but also to escape their planet."

"They willingly become slaves?" Gohan's voice was harsher than he ment it to be.

"Some, the homeless or the weak or the poor. The ones who would do anything to get away from where they live. But many of them are well-paid for their work. All Saiya-jin have to come here for training before they can work for the Aeesu-jin--mosly off planet work and such."

"What kind of off planet work do they do?"

Here, the doctor paused.

"They clear planets." The boy answered his own question.

"It's a profitable trade, unfortunately, and the Aeesu-jin involved don't care that it's wrong. There are millions of Aeesu-jin that are opposed to the growing Planet Trade, I being one of them, but you must know by now that the more power they have, the more corrupt people can become. There's no stopping those in power, and trying only gets you an instant death."

"Can I see?"

The doctor raised his eyebrows, "See what?"

"The Saiya-jin. Where they live. What they look like...I haven't seen very many Saiya-jin in my life."

"You want a tour?"

"If it's not too much trouble." The boy said, his tail slithering up his arm like a python, around his wrist, twisting up his forearm. His face reddened when he realized he might have sounded like Forester.

"Alright, then. I used to explore that level in my youth, so I know the layout. It's dangerious, though. Backlash runs almost half the Aeesu-jin/alien interactions, and Heng keeps at least two men there for security."

Gohan's eyebrows knitted, "Let's not then-"

"However," the doctor said, an almost youthful smile crossing his face for the first time in over fifty years, "I know of a place or two that are less guarded than others. It's not the best example of alien habitats on the planet, but if you want to see..."

* * *

"Have you found him yet?" Henning asked his sentry, leaning over the Aeesu-jin's shoulder as he typed at his console.

Behind him, Joru said, "It doesn't help to rush."

Henning gave him a withering look before disreguarding his words.

The sentry looked at both Tahch-jin brothers, hesitated, then sighed, saying, "Sir, there just isn't enough information to pin-point him. Or even get a general area."

"What do you mean? The whole reason I _gave_ you those chi detectors was so you would be able to find him easier."

The Aeesu-jin shook his head, "I don't know what to say. The signal General Kokoschka reported to us was far below the minimum power we've estimated for Son Gohan. Too low to even consider pursuing."

"Nevertheless, I want whoever it was climbing through the vents found."

"That's the other problem, sir," the Aeesu-jin said, "It was only brief before it just...vanished. A flash of minute power that died on its own."

"Um...," Joru said, getting both his brother and the sentry's attention.

Henning grinned, "You have a threory, brother?"

"Just a hypothosis. Do you remember, brother, how Son Gohan broke into our complex the other day?"

"Yes."

"Right before he left, he jerked his attention to the door, for no apparent reason. It seemed like he heard something we couldn't. Less than a minute afterward, the guards entered through that same door. Before that, when he and that blue monster were rescuing the Aeesu-jin and that other alien, he seemed to know exactly where to go, as though they were wearing some secret homing beacon that could not be detected."

Henning tilted his head back, "What do you think?"

"I think that perhaps this boy has some sort of control of chi. Like he can see it, or hear it, or-"

"A sixth sense?"

"Yes; sight, sound, taste, smell, touch and-"

"Chi."

"It's a thought, anyway," Joru said.

"Interesting," Henning agreed, "Perhaps....perhaps this theory has more to it than you think, brother. Perhaps not only can he see chi...perhaps he can also control it. Or his own, anyway."

The Joru and the sentry watched him, waiting for him to speak the thoughts suddenly coming to his mind.

"Just as we can close our eyes when we don't want to see, and cover our ears when we don't want to hear, perhaps he can-"

"-dissolve his chi if he doesn't want it felt? Control his own chi?" Joru wondered, then said, "That would make sense. If he did that-"

Henning nodded, "If he did that, it would explain why our scouters only picked up a tiny wink of his power before he buried it away for later."

The sentry's forehead creased, "Then how do we find him?"

"The hard way, unfortunately. As astounding as this discovery is, it only makes things harder. Get as many men in here and have them start searching over all the monitoring units. Room by room. Keep an extra ear out on the transmission waves for any disturbances by aliens. That boy seems to have a difficult time staying discreet."

"Yes sir."

* * *

Though he had tried to open his mind to all the possibilities he would face, Gohan was still surprised by what he saw apon entering the Saiya-jin's sector of the Underground. The doctor said it was the training grounds, where the Saiya-jin trained to maintain a working power before taking on the tasks the Aeesu-jin required of them. From what the boy had known before, Saiya-jins were capable of training themselves. They were strick on themselves, sturdy, pushing their powers to their limits and consistantly raising their chi by the day.

He expected to see, as he entered the training rooms, Saiya-jins sparring with eachother, children watching to pick up techniques, others pausing to catch their breath before battling again. He imagined them laughing, perhaps. Having fun. Expirimenting with what their bodies would allow, then stretching beyond it to find new, vast, hidden wells of untapped potential.

Though it was well-lit, the harsh halogen lights burning down on white walls and floor, there was a dark feeling to it. Bleak, oppressive. The instant the boy walked through the door, directly behind the doctor, he flinched. There was bad chi here. It stank like raw sewage to his mind. It was festering. There was rage, anger, seething, smoldering like magma, straining against whatever force was daring to hold it back. It was an instant feeling, like plunging into burning tar, clutching at the boy's arms and legs and tail, so heavy with darkness it seemed to flatten his hair against his head, pull down at his shoulders. It was like drowning.

When he looked around, he expected to see the room filled with faces contorted in rage, their lips drawn back from their teeth like starving feral dogs fighting over a scrap of meat, their eyes burning red as coals. Frothing. Insane.

But everyone in the room seemed calm.

As Gohan continued walking silently behind the doctor, looked right and left in awe and horror, he saw Saiya-jin of all sizes and shapes, their faces blank as new sheets of canvas, though their souls were pregnant with rage. They weren't sparring against eachother. They were waiting in lines. At the end of each line was a mat, thirty by thirty feet wide, and hardly soft enough to stifle even the softest of falls. Worthless, and the boy wondered why they were even used at all.

But his attention was not on the mats, it was what was standing _on_ each mat. Creatures. Gohan had a hard time recogizing them as sentient, they seemed more beast than man. They were aliens, not all of the same race, but seeming to be of one spirit. They were evil. Strong. Some hairy, some scaley. Some blue, some brown, some orange, some green. They were all huge, rippled with muscles, and seemed to have abolutly no good in their eyes, their soul, their heart or their mind. And the Saiya-jin were waiting in line, their hearts full of pure fury, to fight them. Gohan paused to see them better, and his eyes widened. The mats, he saw now, were covered in blood. Over the scalding chi crushing in around him, he hadn't even smelled it. 

The horror of his own mind screeched to a standstill as a mortal scream of anger, frustration and pain filled the large room.

Gohan's head jerked around, finding the source of the tortured sound to be a Saiya-jin. He was laying on a mat, a brutish, giant, green-skinned ogre standing over him. The Saiya-jin's arm was twisted so horribly it was no longer in its socket, flopping around limply as the Saiya-jin squirmed and writhed in agony on the ground, clutching and scraping with his fingernails. Screaming. He had lost his reason, the pain must have been maddening. What was far more horrifying was that Gohan knew the Saiya-jin couldn't have been much older than he was. Thirteen, fourteen. Too young to have to endure such agony.

Gohan opened his mouth but no sound came to him. He looked frantically left, then right, looking for a medic to come rushing forward or for the Saiya-jin around him to save him, pull him off the mat, do _something._

None of the other Saiya-jin moved, though their eyes all focused on the screaming, writhing, painriddled youth. No one moved, though the burning power of their anger rose to even further unspeakable heights, so strong and heavy Gohan found himself almost staggering under its weight, his head spinning from the sudden smell of fear and blood and pain and rage. The chi around him felt like it was eating his soul alive.

The doctor's hand suddenly came down on the Gohan's shoulder, "We should leave."

But the sight was atrociously clutching onto the boy's attention, and in a daze he shook the large Aeesu-jin's hand off him.

The Saiya-jin's screaming was so hard it sounded as though his throat had been shredded to ribbons. Insane. Such pain.

"Stop screaming already!" the monstrious green ogre yelled at the agonizing youth, "Suck it up like a warrior!"

The Saiya-jin went on screaming, his voice beyond human. He was beyond thought process, consumed by pain.

"I said _shut up_!" the ogre yelled, and drove his foot deep into the boy's side. The screaming stopped. The Saiya-jin stopped writhing, stopped moving. The ogre stepped forward, looking down at the inactive form, "You don't follow orders very well. I have no other choice but to...fire you."

He lifted his mammoth foot above the Saiya-jin's head, obviously intending to kill him.

"No, stop!" a Saiya-jin finally yelled, running forward, then suddenly stopping at the edge of the bloodied mat, "Please don't! That's my son, my last son! His brother was just killed yesterday, please don't!"

"Get back in line!" the ogre yelled, "You have a problem with the way I train, you can take it up with me when it's your turn!"

"No!" a second, female voice interupted and a woman ran to the side of the boy's father, her furry tail and long black hair sweeping in behind her, "Please, I'm the boy's mother! Give him one more chance! He's a strong boy, he'll meet your standards within a week, I swear!"

"Your whole family is seeded with mutiny!" the ogre accused, "You'll all die!"

The man wailed, sinking to his knees. The woman tried to say more, but her face distorted with grief and she covered her mouth with his hands, saying, "No, no, not my son, please, no..."

The ogre raised his foot into the air to deliver the final blow to the downed boy, when suddenly, with a savage yell, the father rushed forward, his eyes livid. The mother rushed in directly behind him, a wild shriek for blood flying from her lips.

And an amazing thing happened.

Suddenly, in a single wave, more Saiya-jin rushed forward, like a giant tidal wave, burying the green ogre under their number, their feet flying, their fists pounding repeately, their yells of savagery and anger and pent up years, lives, of frustration and restraint suddenly burning to ash in the heat of their erupting rage.

The ogre vanished under them, his scream drowned out by the screams of his attackers. Gohan could only watch as dark purple blood began to leak out from under the attacking Saiya-jin's feet. They were beating the ogre to death. He was probably already dead.

The rebelling Saiya-jin were abruptly scattered as a blast of searing blue chi exploded against them. Some of the Saiya-jin died the instant it hit them, others wounded beyond fighting. Gohan followed everyone else's gaze as they saw the other brutish alien 'trainers' were not directing their attention to the rebellions happening. One of them, a huge pink alien with horns lining his head, had been the attacker.

The other Saiya-jin, waiting in other lines, were now looking, too. The passive, blank looks on their faces seemed to suddenly melt into determination, rage, and what could almost be joy. They turned on the other aliens, pounding them into the mat, their chi's blasting up for battle and their spirits suddenly clutching at the curtains of the window to freedom.

But, though the trainers were dying, so were the Saiya-jin. Now that surprise was gone, the trainers were blasting into the attacking crowds killing them in midstep, burning their bodies, dissolving their chi's.

Gohan heard one of the trainers yelling into a communicator. He was calling for help. Reinforcments.

"Gohan," the doctor said, tapping the mezmerized boy on the arm, "We have to get out of here! If the Aeesu-jin guards come here they'll surely recognize you-"

But the doors of the training room had already opened, and two large fleets filled the room, their tails dealing death to any Saiya-jin they came across.

"Kill them all!" one Aeesu-jin commanded, and the order was starting to be filled out.

But then, the door on the opposite side of the room opened, and what must have been all the Saiya-jin in the Underground rushed to meet the fleet of Aeesu-jin. One of the Saiya-jin must have called for reinforcements as well. The room was getting packed, too packed, and there were more Saiya-jin and Aeesu-jin just waiting outside the doors, unable to squeeze in and fight. The room just couldn't hold that many.

A sudden wave of fighting, bleeding, stinking, rageful Aeesu-jins, Saiya-jins and unknown trainers swept over Gohan and the doctor. Gohan heard his only ally yell, "Son Gohan!" before he vanished under the mob of bodies. Gohan was alone in a sea of fighting. His mind refused to co-operate.

It was insane. A massacre. A blood bath. He couldn't focus his eyes as he looked around. It was all red, a bleary haze. Something was on fire, burning. Gohan could smell the smoke, just as he smelled death and blood and fear and hatred, searing heat mixing with equally burning emotions as everyone--men, women, children--present wailed away at eachother. People were dying, and killing, and burning. Gohan could feel their chi's raging, then suddenly being cut short like a snuffed candle. 

It was strange, but though he was almost painfully aware of each acute sensation, he couldn't focus on his surroundings. It was all a smear of moving, screaming, blasting, dying, killing. He didn't want to concentrate on it, his mind was hazing in compliance.

A sudden explotion of chi behind him brought him half-way back to his senses, and with a face almost void of expression he watched an unrecognizable alien run past him, his whole body being consumed alive by fire. He was screaming. Slowly, Gohan's head turned to watch him run by, the flames leaping off his body and the smell of his burning skin flooding his senses. It was insane. 

His head stopped turning when he came across a second, even more prepostrious sight. A Saiya-jin boy--he couldn't have been more than ten years old--was fighting against a giant blue fishy-like alien with a peculiar fin on the top of his head. The alien was huge. The Saiya-jin boy was miniature. But the battle was waging in favor of the tiny Saiya-jin. Probably the alien had been hurt by some other group of rebelling Saiya-jin that had already died, and the boy was just finishing him off. 

It didn't matter. What struck Gohan as insane was that the Saiya-jin boy was winning, each time his small fists struck his opponent there was an audible shattering of bones. The youth was smiling, then laughing, as his 'trainer' turned victim retched and from his mouth a stream of blood splattered to the ground. Gohan found himself cheering the child on, mentally willing him to continue the horrible one-sidded battle to its macabre end.

When the child raised his hand above the alien's head, Gohan's mind said '_Do it!_' And when the child drove his elbow through his opponents skull, sloshing the ground with gray matter and blood, Gohan's mind said, '_Yes!_' 

An Aeesu-jin, his face contorted with rage, suddenly plowed his way into Gohan's perception, his wild red eyes were centered on the Saiya-jin boy, who was too busy proudly surveying his kill to realize his danger. The Aeesu-jin raised his fist to kill the child, but was never able to follow through with his attack.

For Gohan had already blasted a gaping hole through his chest.

The Aeesu-jin fell, dead, and the Saiya-jin boy's eyes met Gohan's for a brief second, looking almost confused as to why he had saved him. Gohan smiled. The boy smiled back and gave a Saiya-jin salute. Then he was gone, rushing back into battle to kill and probably be killed. Gohan bit his lip until he felt blood run down his chin. He was staring at the dead Aeesu-jin--his own victim--in silence. The blood that dripped from his chin to struck his collar bone. His tail whip-snapped against his calves.

He wasn't really seeing the Aeesu-jin body. He was looking through it while his senses picked up the chi around him. Saiya-jin were dying. Too many at once. It wasn't a fight, it was just Saiya-jin's struggling to survive a few seconds before being killed. Gohan blinked, then raised his head to look around him, taking in everything he saw. He was standing in a sea of bodies, all moving in different directions. The floor was crimson, burried under the wash of blood that poured from the less fortunate fighters. It was so crowded that ever after death took them some of the bodies didn't even have the merciful space to fall to the ground. Like being in a can of fighting sardins.

When the boy's tail hung down behind him, he had to curl the end upward or else it would actually dip into the blood under his feet. His boots were already slick with sticky red. 

As he felt one Saiya-jin chi after another cease to shine, Gohan became aware of something deep within him, fighting its way to the surface. It was wild and angry, berserk. It wasn't fair. He wished everyone would stop fighting, killing, hurting, dying. If only for a minute, just so he could think. It was too loud. People were dying too loud. He had to get ahold of and stop that thing inside him, worming and burrowing its way through him; spiraling up his body and mind then plunging him through its center.

He squeezed his eyes shut and clamped his hands over his ears, trying to block out the sounds, the sights. It didn't matter what he did. He still smelled them. Worse, he felt them. Like standing in the middle of a room, filled with millions of strobe lights, all flashing so brightly they hurt. Occationally, a light winked out, but it didn't matter because each time one did, another three started flashing. War. Riots. It was a new concept to the boy who was used to one-on-one conflicts. It was horrible. Worse, perhaps, than the kind he was used to.

But now that he was in one, part of one, it was almost aluring. He was part of the entire mass of Saiya-jins, a massive, multi-part body of freedom fighters. On the losing side, as usual, but for now it didn't matter. A Saiya-jin ran past him, shouting back to him, "Move your ass, kid! There's Aeesu-jin to be killed!"

It was a final push. With a yell, he raised his knee and spun, ramming a powerful, deadly blow to an Aeesu-jin as he ran by, trying to chase a speedy Saiya-jin. The race ended, and the Aeesu-jin died. Gohan gathered chi and blasted two more Aeesu-jin to oblivion, the smell of the burning skin arousing that thing that was now quivering dangeriously from the surface. His battle lust.

He demolished some unrecognizable alien's face with his elbow, then smashed his rib cage in with his shoulder. The opponents were all so large!

Suddenly, a strangely familiar hand grabbed hold of his arm, and the good doctor appeared next to him, surveying the smatterings of blood on his gi. Gohan didn't want to talk to him right now. He had to get away.

"Stop it!" the doctor yelled over the roar of battle, "Look at-" but before he could even finish speaking the boy tore loose of his grip--the doctor could have sworn he almost tore his fingers out with it--and went rushing back into the mob, his fist smashing in the face of an Aeesu-jin as he passed him, his tail flying out behind him like a Saiya-jin banner.

"Gohan!" The doctor called after him, pursuing the boy into the heart of the riot. Bodies were slamming into everything, eachother, the walls, the floor, the cealing. Some dead, some getting up only to rush back into the fight, some curling into a ball as they realized they were fatally wounded. That's how it was for the Saiya-jin. They faught, and faught, using every shred and fiber of their being to attack the Aeesu-jin and the other aliens trying to dominate them, but it was Saiya-jin that were dying. One hit was all it took for them to be out of the fight. For every Aeesu-jin that died, fourty Saiya-jin went with him.

People were screaming. Horrible screams of revenge and rage, other mortal screams from victims as the agony of death set apon them. 

The doctor heard Gohan screaming, as well. It wasn't a pained scream, or one of fear or grief. He was screaming as he gave into wild abandon, so hard and so loud that he sounded like he was tearing his throat bloody. And each time he drew a breath to further his battle cry he never paused. He was the champion of the Saiya-jin, dealing death freakishly to anything other than Saiya-jin that came near him, his face excited, exhilerated, if not joyful, but his eyes dark, as though thought had been banished from him.

He looked scary, splattered in blood, his eyes burning with black fire as his opponents died instantly, falling at his feet only to be stepped on by the insane, mindless mob.

Pushing his way through the crowd, uncomfortable with having to roughly shove people out of his way as he did so, the doctor forced his way to Son Gohan. As he reached the boy, luck gave him a small wink of forture, for Gohan's back was to him. Taking advantage of everything he could, the doctor lunged forward at the boy, hands outstretched from his sides as far as they could go, and with one swift sweep he wrapped his arms around the boy, pinning his arms to his side.

"Gohan!" the doctor screamed into the boy's ear, but Gohan himself was screaming and did not hear him. Thinking he was being attacked from behind, the boy kicked and faught harder, straining his arms against the doctors powerful bear-hug, banging his head backward against the doctor's collar bone. He was fighting like a wild animal.

"Stop, it's me!" the doctor yelled again, his voice finally penetrating through the boy's own yells. Recognition set in, and he stopped kicking, but he continued to strain against the doctor's crushing arms, getting horrible senses of deja vu from the last time someone large and strong had managed to wrap their arms around him.

"What are you doing?" Gohan yelled over the roaring din of other battles, "Let me go!"

"Listen to me!" The doctor said, not letting the boy free for fear he go running back into the crowd. He was interupted as an Aeesu-jin rushed toward them, attempting to attack the boy while he was helpless. Acting half on instinct, the doctor whipped his tail forward and belted the Aeesu-jin over the head. The attacker was stopped short and fell to the ground.

A Saiya-jin attacked the doctor from behind, and as though on signal, ten more swarmed in behind him, attacking the doctor unmercifully, their faces desperate to kill just one more Aeesu-jin before death took them. Many of them were bleeding badly. Some had gaping wounds and slashes across their stomachs, fatal wounds that no doctor in the world could hope to fix.

The doctor ran, keeping Gohan crushed to his chest. The attackers were swallowed up into the heaving throng and the doctor stopped looking behind him as he looked ahead for some place safe.

He eventually came across a door where training equipment was kept. The door wasn't electric, so the doctor had to slid it open with his tail, for he was using the last shreds of his muscle power to keep Gohan from breaking free. He rushed into the small room, closing the door behind him, before finally releasing the boy.

Gohan instantly spun on his feet, his tail seemed twice its normal size, every hair pointed outward into razor-shart tips, "Why did you do that?!"

"There were Backlash _and_ Heng people swarming all over out there! They were everywhere! All over you! That's their blood on your clothes!"

A sudden, uncontrolable wave of anger rose in the boy and he turned in the room, driving his fist into a punching bag, which exploded, showering him with grains of sand. He punched the wall behind the destroyed equipment, driving his fist through it. He punched it again with his other hand. It was all he could do, all his body would allow. Hitting the wall over and over.

_Bang_..._Bang_..._Bang_

Ten, twenty times. His knuckles were bleeding. His shoulders ached. He was gasping, out of breath. But, finally, he was in control again. The ignited blaze in the boy's eyes dimmed to a smoldering coal, still spiting as though water was beind dripped on it.

Still gasping for air he looked at his hands, at the blood weeping from his torn knuckles. The anger on his face vanished altogether, suddenly turning into fear.

He looked up at the doctor, his eyes wide, "Did I really do that? Kill all those people?"

The doctor nodded, grateful the boy had finally calmed, "You did."

Gohan looked down at his clothes, the dark stains of blood on his gi, his boots. His cheek was splattered, too. He could feel it.

He covered his face with his hand, squeezing his eyes shut, wanting to block out the sudden tide of memories that didn't seem to register in his brain til now. Their heads exploding with red, their wet gasps as he destroyed their guts. The sizzling sound they made when his chi kissed their bodies.

He was trembling. He smelled their blood on his hands.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He said. The doctor wasn't sure if he was appologizing to him, or the people he had killed, "I didn't mean to. I didn't want to. I'm so sorry."

"Son Gohan..."

The boy looked up at the doctor, his blood smeared face horribly inappropriate for the look of terror he had. Terror of himself?

"I have to go," Gohan said.

"Back into the mob?"

"No."

The boy turned to the far wall of the small equipment room and blasted it down, "I don't want to go back."

"Son Gohan?"

The boy turned to meet his eye.

"Don't blame youself. It was...horrible...what happened back there. Those people deserved to die."

The boy's smile was empty, but he spoke truthfully when he said, "Thank you. I'm sorry for-"

"Stop appologizing. I mean it."

The boy closed his eyes and nodded. He left the room, not looking back.

* * *

Henning's face was just _too_ close to the monitor, Joru decided. It would surely scald his eyes some day.

"Where is he? Where did he go?" Henning suddenly yelled, pulling his head away from the monitor and turning to the Aeesu-jin sentry who had been monitoring the alien sector of the Underground when suddenly a riot broke out. It wasn't long before the boy, Son Gohan joined it. It really was amazing, the Aeesu-jin decided, how that boy _always_ seemed to find the most trouble he could get into, then make it worse.

"I don't know," the sentry addressed Henning's question, "Are you sure he's not in the room anywhere? It's rather full, maybe he was-"

"He's there," Henning insisted, "He must be."

"Maybe he was killed," Joru said, almost hoping it were true. Fighting for your people. It was a good way to go. Honorable. Far better than what his brother would do to the boy.

"He's not dead, and he's_ here somewhere_!! You just aren't looking hard enough! He was _right there_! So close! Keep looking, keep looking!"

"Yes, sir," the sentry said, and started filing over all the monitoring angles he had.

* * *

It was a bitter daze. All the surroundings looked alike, and Gohan's mind didn't care which way he went. Every Aeesu-jin he passed stared at his blood-soaked gi in open horror. The boy didn't care. His mind was his punisher. He couldn't stop thinking in circles. How many had he killed? A hundred? More? Too many. His calculator mind, normally so fond of numbers, refused to give him a figure. Somewhere deep inside, he had been counting. It was an automatic thing he did. In his sleep, the number, ever rising, would plague him.

Nightmares. It had only been three months ago, before this mission, that the nightmares had finally stopped. Three months since he stopped waking up somewhere outside, the trees around him on fire, his Super Saiya-jin body soaked in sweat, with no memory of how he got there. He had stopped waking his mother up at night by screaming in his sleep. Such an awful sound, she said, it sounded like he was being eaten alive.

They would return. The Aeesu-jin he killed. All of them. And the people he killed before that. Every single one of his victims would attack him in his sleep, living on in his hellish dreams, all with Tousan's head. It was horrible. All that time, all those nightmares of pain and anger. Years. It would take years and years for them to go away. It was beyond hope.

The Saiya-jin were probably all dead by now. And some day, hundreds of years in the future, there would only be one Saiya-jin left. 

A single, solitary tear slid down his cheek. It was all the mourning that escaped him. He didn't wipe it away.

**To be continued........**


	21. CM21

I've done some major expanding to my [website][1]; Fanmanga, Fanart, all my other fics and much more in the oven. 

* * *

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 21**

A group of sixteen waited quietly in the shadows. Had been for only twenty minutes, getting reports over their communicators every thirty second interval. Occationally, they moved to intercept the target.

"He's still moving east on tunnel 3042ED, level thirty two LowerClass sector five."

The group waited in silence, breathing quietly, trying to keep their very ecsence hidden until called apon.

"He's turning left into tunnel 3041EC, same level. Same sector."

Someone in the group swore, another mumbled, "We have to move again?" The slight noise ceased at a sharp crack of the commander's tail, after which he whisper-barked, "Move out."

The group moved like a shadow, following unlit back tunnels and avoiding people. When the commander stopped, so did the others, one murmering to another, "Heng better pay us well for this. I hear this little bastard has already killed over fifty Aeesu-jin." He recieved a cuff on the head, dropping him back into silence.

The commander addressed his squad, "As soon as the target appears, attack. Do not attack until you have personal visual confirmation. Do not retreat. Do not stop until the target is dead."

"Yes, sir!" the squad answered quietly but forcefully. They hunkered down to wait for the next report.

* * *

General Kokoschka leaned back from the monitor he sat at, stretching his arms over his head. Furim, eyes heavy from lack of sleep, looked at him from his own terminal, saying, "Henning is insane."

Kokoschka chuckled sleepily, tapping a few buttons to keep up with his task, "What brings on this sudden realization?"

The younger Aeesu-jin tapped at his terminal, going about his job as he spoke, "How can he seriously expect us to work for thirteen hours straight?"

"We were nearing our shift's nine-hour stretch-"

"-and looking forward to a night cap and a bout with my bed-"

"-when we found the boy. I guess Henning thinks that since we found him once, we should monitor him until our men pick him up."

"Yeah, but _look_ at him!" Furim gestured to the screen he was monitoring. Kokoschka leaned back in his seat and looked at the other's terminal. On the screen, they could both see the wandering form of a small Saiya-jin boy, walking down a lone hallway, his tail twirling wildly behind him to keep him upright. His gait was irregular, he walked in zig-zags from one side of the hall to the other, his shoulders occationally brushing against the walls, "I thought we were looking for some special super kid with incredible skill and cunning. That kid looks like he's got brain damage or something. What's all over his clothes?"

Kokoschka looked closer at the image, then leaned back, answering, "Looks like blood to me."

"Blood?"

"Didn't you hear the reports? Got caught up in a huge riot down below the Lower Class levels, killed quiet a few. He must be shell shocked."

"Huhn." Furim responded. The two of them continued to follow the boy's movements on their screens for a moment.

"Ahah," Kokoschka said, "He's heading right into our hands. Get on the communicator and call the waiting team. I'll direct them."

* * *

Son Gohan didn't like asking for much. He generally liked being independent, and knowing that somewhere out there someone loved him. All he wanted now was peace of mind. For every little thought, notion, memory, and musing to die where it stood and vanish, leaving him to a pleasant, thoughtless void.

Of coarse, though he asked for so little, he still didn't get it.

Instead, he had lost control of his thought processes altogether, sending him forward and backward in his head like a possessed VCR. Rewind to the past hours, watching his hands sink into cold Aeesu-jin flesh, hearing their last breath erupt from them as life was shoved from their bodies by the force of his attacks.

Stop. Eject.

Instead, his mind would fast-forward-- what would happen when he got back to camp? He was lost again, and this time there was no shining, gentle chi to lead the way. Too addle-brained to reach far enough out to find Sunow, much less remember which direction he had taken. It could be hours. Last time he had been late getting back Bojack had been....displeased. If such a word could be applied to a raving, violently angry man who had thrown him against the wall of his house.

No. Pause. Not the time to think of that. Stop.

But instead his mind fast-forwarded to the farther future, when (if) he made it back to Earth, what would he tell everyone? _How_ could he tell everyone? Even if by some horribly lucky turn of events no one noticed he had been away from Earth for--how many days had it been? Seven? Eight?--quite a while, could he possibly go on as though nothing had happened? He wouldn't be able to_ not_ tell his mother. He'd tell Piccolo, too. And he felt Vegita would have a right to know. Would they even believe him? He hardly believed it himself.

_Stop!_

He froze in his step.

As much as he would have liked to know he had won the battle with his mind, the entire problem had vanished as a new one appeared before him.

An intersection. He didn't know exactly why he had stopped, for he had crossed and stumbled through probably fourty such branchings of the mindless path he had taken. But this one felt different. Screamed danger. Something deep inside, instincts, subconscious, whatever, was yelling that whatever lie ahead would surely be his end.

He hesitated. Took a step backward, his eyes searching ahead. It was a T-shaped intersection, the hall he was currently in stopping abruptly and heading left and right at such an angle he couldn't see anything. Looking behind, he found he was the only person in the halls--his wanderings had led him away from the populated areas.

It screamed ambush.

The quiet, forceful voice in the back of his mind whispered for him to turn around and run, as fast and far as he could. He turned to do so, when he realized the voice telling him to run was the same one that had told him--forced him--to kill those Aeesu-jin back at that bloody massacre. It was the same worming, almost irresistable sense that coiled around his spine and made the hairs on his tail stand on end.

Subconscious, surely it was that. But it was more, for he could almost feel it, see it climbing through his brain. His will to live? It didn't feel directly evil, scratch that, it felt good, right, wise. It felt like it knew the right thing to do, and truely believed he and he alone could do it.

But good things don't kill people, wise things don't replace thought process with mechanical acts of violence.

The voice was out to preserve him, but him alone. Selfish. Spoiled. A sour taste crept across the boy's tounge. He had been spoiled, once. Perhaps still was. He hated it. Who was he to put himself first? He hated that voice. For the moment, loathed it. Abominated it. 

In defiance, he walked forward, fighting against the maddening urge to flee. He wouldn't run. 

A yell. At first, just one. Loud. 

"Attack!!"

Gohan hardly had a chance to register where the sound came as many, incredibly large Aeesu-jin flew from around the corner, their speed incredibly, and their chi suddenly raising to . The boy hadn't felt them, his mind had been too numb to sense chi, just as he had been unable to see exactly where he was going or what he was doing. But now that they were here, their power was almost distracting.

The Aeesu-jin in the lead--so very large, like a truck hurdling forward at reckless speeds--thrust forward his hands as he ran, centering his chi into a bright blue ball and hurdled it at the boy.

Gohan threw himself to the floor just as the blast sailed over his head. 

_How did they find me? No time, no time! Move!_

Using his low angle, he kicked off the ground and rammed his shoulder into the Aeesu-jin just as he was raising his hands to shoot again--this time he wouldn't miss! A wet _crack_ erupted as the giant's ribs shattered inward, punctureing his lungs and heart. He was dead in an instant.

The boy kicked off the body--still standing--and threw his legs over his head, avoiding the sweeping tail of a second Aeesu-jin. The instant the boy's feet hit the ground he dove forward, his mind spinning distractingly.

_That blast would have killed me! These aren't Henning's men_.....

Twisting like a cork-screw, he dove around an Aeesu-jin, spun, and rammed his fist into the Aeesu-jin's back; it broke through, driving through spine and into warm vitals. Gohan was horrified. The Aeesu-jin was dying. 

_Oh, kami, kami_....... _No time! Don't stop! _

He ducked under a giant fist, then almost had to double over sideways to avoid a kick. Whipping his tail around his waist to keep it safe, he lost his balance just as an attacker broke through his defenses. The boy wasn't fast enough to dodge, and the Aeesu-jin drove his knee deep into the boy's stomach. Gohan gagged as he tasted bile and blood in the back of his mouth; the attack had taken his breath away and he was desperatly trying to suck air into his constricted body.

The Aeesu-jin who had kneed him clasped his hands together, raised them above his head, then brought them crashing down onto the boy's back. Gohan was pitched face first into the tiles below, cracking his head against the ground so hard stars swam across his vision. 

He brought his knees up under him, and shoved off the ground just as a burning blast of chi incinerated the spot he had been laying in.

Landing on his feet again, the boy shouted, "Who are you!?"

The Aeesu-jins pause, looking at the largest amoung them--Gohan saw now that he wore a crimson sash across his chest with large, intricate Aeesu-jin letters written boldly across it. The giant amoung giants stepped forward, reguarding the bodies of his falled companions with indifference. The other Aeesu-jin awaited his order.

"We are Heng's Arms and Legs," the commander said, his hands behind his back, "We are under strict orders from Heng to kill you. I hope you can see how out-numbered you are; if you surrender now we can give you a quick, relatively painless death. Resist....well, you've killed some of our friends. Many of the men would leap at the chance to beat the life out of you."

"Heng," Gohan said with almost-relief. Not Henning. Not a psycopath out to capture him....just a psycopath out to kill him. He couldn't even remember what he had done, really. Heng wanted to kill him? For trying to save the planet? Craziness. Maddness. Lunacy, "How did you find me?"

"You think you're invisible? You were spotted in the Saiya-jin riot below, and it's not hard to keep track of a Saiya-jin boy dressed in blood. You were reported." The commander grinned, "We have people everywhere. Are you going to surrender or not? We don't have all day."

The boy lowered his fighting stance, raising his arms to defend against attacks.

"You made a stupid choice."

The boy looked behind the commander to see that the rest of the squad had gathered together in a tight group, pointed like an arrow, the tip aimed at _him_. It was actually kind of creepy, like looking into the point of an arrow just before it enters your chest. The boy tightened his already clenched teeth and reached deep down for his last reserve of chi. He had a bad feeling about this.

The commander stepped back, and said, "Kill him."

They attacked as one, flying forward as one body and one mass. Even as Gohan stepped into offensive, it just didn't feel right, as though something was wrong, obvious. Then it struck him. They were attacking head on, charging directly at his front. Trained warriors. Probably decades of expiriance. All attacking from the front. The voice in the back of his mind was shrieking at him, but he couldn't even hear what it was saying.

He charged his chi into his hands and blasted the Aeesu-jin in the front of the attack, then dove forward to meet the rest, leaping into the air and gathering his legs up to his chest, then ramming them downward into the torso of the first Aeesu-jin he was close enough to.

It had been a trick. He saw now, too late, that even as his foot finished its destructive path through the Aeesu-jin's chest, a second Aeesu-jin had been concentrating his chi into his fingers, pin-pointing it to a deady accuracy, aiming at the boy's chest. Lethal. 

Desperatly, the Gohan threw his body backward, his legs curling up behind him for momentum. For his efforts, the blast missed its target, missed his whole torso, but drove into his calf instead. Into and through. All the way through. Gohan saw it's path, watched it go straight in one side of his leg and out the other, but at first was unable to comprehend it. It hadn't hurt. It was like a tug below his knees. A nudge. It had happened too fast.

But when he finished his flip and landed on his feet, a sudden shock of pain ran up his calf, his thigh and into his hip. His tail spun around behind him like a propeller, trying to keep him standing as his left leg suddenly gave out from under him. He caught himself on his right leg, pulling him back up to standing.

The enemy was pressing in, confident now that their victim was wounded. Though Gohan would have liked very much to prove he was still very much lethal, his left leg was not responding. He tried to step back out of the way of a flying punch, but his left leg gave out completely, he staggered, fell half-way before catching himself with his hands, straining his one good leg to raise back to standing.

A fist drove into his back, sharp knuckles surely digging deep into his ribs, while a tail whipped across his good leg with burning accuracy, hooking around his ankle after impact, then whipping his foot off the ground. He tried to catch himself on his elbows, but the tail whisked him off the ground completely, swung him in an arc over the Aeesu-jin's heads, and slammed him against the ground with enough force to cave the tiles beneath, sending crumblings into the room below their feet.

Even then the Aeesu-jin's tail did not release his ankle, tearing him up from the ground and cureening him into a wall, then off the wall and into the wall on the other side, then over their heads and against the ground again. After the first two impacts, the myriad old pains cancelled out the new ones, and Gohan hardly felt it when the Aeesu-jin tail finally realeased his ankle, hurdling him through into and through two more walls.

He tried to get to his feet--hell, he would have liked to just sit up--but he didn't have the chance. All of the surviving Aeesu-jin were at him, on top of him, their fists ruthlessly, unmercifully pumping into him with such force that his body was jumping against the ground and blood was pooling up in his mouth, choking him, though his body was unable to breath.

Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light. Gohan was only half aware of it, but he was suddenly realized the Aeesu-jin weren't attacking him anymore. He opened his eyes--which he only now realized were closed--and saw that the Aeesu-jin attackers were just standing over him, their heads all turned to look at something out of his view. Painfully, slowly, he managed to raise his head and follow the direction they were looking.

A second group of Aeesu-jin stood at a twenty foot distance. The largest standing in the fore, obviously the leader, wore no sash, no insignia, and no smile. He was as wide as he was tall--very, on both accounts--but under his considerable lumps of flesh, muscle was evident. He looked down-right mean.

"This is official Heng business," the commander said, "Leave the premesis immidiatly."

The round Aeesu-jin pulled back his lips in something that could either be a snear, or a smile, "I'm sorry, but my boss has sent us on our own official business."

The commander narrowed his eyes, "What business is that?"

"Him," he pointed a thick, meaty finger at Gohan, "My boss wants _him_."

The boy's strength in his neck turned watery, and he was unable to keep his head up enough to see what was going on. He lowered himself back to the floor, souly depending on his hearing to know what was going on.

The commander was talking, "-direct orders to kill him, so you'll have to tell your boss that he's just not getting what he wants. Who is your boss anyway?"

"He's a brilliant man, not an Aeesu-jin. A species called...Tahch-jin."

Gohan squeezed his eyes shut, hoping, wishing he had misheard. Tahch-jin. Henning. _Oh, kami, not now_.....

"His name," the large stranger continued, "Is Henning."

Completely beyond his control, Gohan groaned quietly. No one heard. He tightened his fingers into a fist. He couldn't just lay here and wait to see which group got to keep him.

"If you are refusing to leave, I'll have to kill you," the commander, stepping to the side so all his men were visible. They were large, formidable, and deadly in looks and, Gohan knew, in reality.

The plump Aeesu-jin chuckled and also stepped aside to show his men, "What you're not noticing is that our number is greater than yours."

"Is that a challenge?"

"Think of it as a warning. Give us the boy."

"You can have him when he's dead."

"Now."

The commander shook his head, "You can't order Heng's men around. This has gone on far enough--prepare to die."

Even at his akward position, Gohan could see the Aeesu-jin standing above him drop into tight-knit fighting stances, even their tails twined behind them in a way that it would be least obstructed. At the commanders, "Go!" the entire group of Aeesu-jin that had survived the attack with Gohan charged forward--and out of the boy's field of vision.

It didn't matter that Gohan couldn't see it, for the battle was short. Henning had taken all precautions, sending thirty men to make sure he _got_ his prize; his best thirty. His strongest. The ones he was most proud of. If they were defeated by Son Gohan....Henning was pretty sure he would give up the chase and blow the planet up under the boy's feet.

Heng's men were fierce, strong, durable, and well trained. They were also few. Still, in a mad rush to avenge his wounded pride, the commander managed to use his last reserves to break through the first line of defense and ram the tip of his tail, like a spear, into the plump Aeesu-jin's chest, through his heart, and out the other side. The last sight he saw before being burned to death from a concentrated chi blast was the sight of the plump Aeesu-jin's face seeming to explode outward with blood, his nose, his mouth, gushing and smelling bad and splattering against the floor.

It was a good sight to die with.

"The commander's dead!" A voice rang out above the shouts of battle and the explotions of chi, "Retreat!"

In a sudden chorus, Heng's men began yelling, "Retreat! Retreat!"

And so they did. Turned tail, gathered their chi, and flew down the hall as fast as they could--their number reduced to four.

Henning's men stood for a moment, out of breath. They had just rebelled against Heng. _Heng_ for kami's sake. Ruler. Master. God. 

Leaning over the bloody body of the plump Aeesu-jin one of the men said, "He's dead."

"Never really liked him," another said, "Who's in charge, now?"

"I am, by rank," said a third, tall Aeesu-jin, wirey, solid as a rock, thin as a blade of grass. 

A chorus of 'fine-by-me's murmered from the men. It was only now that they turned their heads to look at their target.

Son Gohan was standing, shakily, but in control. He was putting his weight on his right leg, the other useless from the knee down, his fists tight at his sides, knuckles white, eyes narrow. Bloody. Frightening, though harmless.

"Well," the wirey new commander said, crossing his long arms across his slender chest, "Heng's men were kind enough to wear him out. All we have to do now is collect him."

"Heh," a few other Aeesu-jin said. Three of them moved forward, their hands raised in the ready to lay hold of the boy once they were close enough. They moved slowly. Henning had warned them thoroughly before they left to be careful.

Gohan had been prepared. During the fight between Heng and Henning's Aeesu-jin, he had been gathering his chi--whatever was left--for one last strike. He would _not_ be taken without a fight. He released his fists and raised his hands, palms facing out, above his head. The movement hurt his back muscles, and the pain only intensified when he strained his power up his arms, into his hands.

_Fast. Have to move fast._

Not waiting for the three closest Aeesu-jin to react, he threw his hands forward, hurdling out as much powe as he could, aiming for a pre-selected target. A flash of light. A startled cry of surprise cut short as a burning white blast passed through the victim's neck, nearly severing his head. One very dead Aeesu-jin.

It certainly caught the other two approaching Aeesu-jin by surprise. They watched, their eyes wide, as their comrad's body sank to the floor, already bloody from the gaping wound. The _thump_ his knees made when he hit the floor brought them from their temporary shock, and they turned rageful eyes toward the boy.

"You little bastard," one of them said spitefully, then lunged, his tail whipping ahead of him to catch Gohan across the face. The boy, not wanting to waste a single ounce of the power he had left, only barely cocked his head to the side, the deadly tail flying harmlessly past--so close he felt the wind behind it brush past his cheek. He brought back his hand, his eyes dialating as he focused his entire attention on the Aeesu-jin flying at him at incredible speed.

_Wait for it_....

There! Just within reach! Ducking under the Aeesu-jin's flying leap, he rammed his, flat as a blade, into the face of the attacker--right between his eyes. The attacker tried to stop in mid-leap, but was too late, for though his sudden reduction in speed managed to avoid having the boy's entire hand slide right into his brain, the impact was too much; his skull cracked, thick, pinkish substance seeped from his ears, and his last leg of momentum sent his body skidding across the floor with no hope of ever getting back up to his feet.

Gohan lunged at a third Aeesu-jin, then suddenly vanished as he used his last weapon, speed, to leap into the air--twisting his limp left leg while he was at it--and twin his arm around his opponent's neck. Still holding tightly, he jerked his body away from the Aeesu-jin, and a loud, wet _snap_ erupted.

The third Aeesu-jin fell, his head twisted backward at a horribly unproportionate angle.

Gohan landed on his one good leg, almost staggering backward as darkness enveloped his peripheral sight. He felt his blood rushing down his calf, into his boots. Sticky and warm. He was loosing alot. Too much. He smelled it everywhere, how could he have this much blood? His mind was staggering as much as his body, and he found himself incapable of thinking through a rational escape plan. He was limited to tunnel vision, like looking through the twin barrels of a gun. He had to turn his entire head to look at the rest of his enemies. 

He was surrounded. They stood on every side of him in a circle, just waiting for him to move again. Ready. Their muscles were tense.

The boy wanted to run. To let the last remaining adrenaline in him to explode in sudden, newfound power, and run far away from them, leaving them in his dust.

But when he tried to bolt, his left leg stayed where it was. He had no feeling in it, and when he tried to jump over the attackers, it dragged behind him, stumbling him. He started to fall, and they were suddenly upon him. A hard, sharp knee slammed directly between his shoulderblades, following him down. When he hit the ground chest first, the knee drove in sharper, almost snapping his spine. 

Two strong, large hands closed around his wrists, twisting his arms behind him, pinning them to the small of his back. He tried to kick his legs, but a sinewy tail twined around them, pinning his knees and ankles together. He couldn't move. He tried moving his head, but there was a foot pressing down on it, smashing his nose against the floor. Left with nothing else to do, he started screaming, loud and hard. Screaming his frustration, his fear, his helplessness, his voice carrying far down the halls.

A sharp fist against the back of his head ceased his noise, and the darkness gobbling up the sides of his vision closed in around him, and then even the darkness was gone. A total loss of feeling crept up his body as someone stepped on his tail.

Unable to stand anymore, the boy sank into unconsciousness.

**

"What's so important that you have to interupt me in my nearing moment of glory?" Henning's voice rang down an empty corridor.

Joru released his brother's arm once the door behind them _hissed_ shut, "Henning, I think we should have our men kill Son Gohan on sight."

The other blinked in surprise, "You've been saying that alot lately, and I thought we both agreed that repetition is a source of evil, as well as a waist of time. And here you are, forcing _me_ to answer, aggravatingly redundant, no. I have to deal death to the boy. Me and no one else."

"Sir!" A voice barked.

Joru turned his head, and the sight stopped his breath in his throat. 

There were many Aeesu-jin, Joru didn't count them, one a prisoner, for he was being forcefully led by two other Aeesu-jin. Joru didn't look at them, either. He was looking at the largest Aeesu-jin, who walked in the fore-front of the group. And before him, walked Son Gohan.

The boy looked half dead. His arms were pinned behind his back by the Aeesu-jin behind him, who had his other hand on the boy's shoulder--having to steady and lead him more than restrain him. The youth's eyes were partly closed, as though he were unaware, or sleepwalking, his head was slightly tilted to a side. He was caked with blood. It was half-dried and crispy on parts of him, other places it ran wet and sticky, down from under his hair, along his temple, under his jaw. His gi was dark with it, maroon and dark red and in some places purple.

Aeesu-jin blood, some of it surely had to be. But his as well, red as rubies. 

Horrified, Joru made his eyes look at the floor. It was too late, though. The image was burned on the insides of his eyelids. It just didn't look right, seeing such a small boy in such a situation, bloody and hurt, staggering and limping. Didn't children belong in safe, clean playgrounds? Weren't they supposed to joyfully chase eachother back and forth across a green field until their mothers called them in to wash their hands and eat supper?

The Tahch-jin cast his eyes upward, then down again. That boy wasn't. No safe playground for him. No games of chase. No green field. No washing his hands, no mother, no supper. He had lots of blood, plenty of that, and he had a bleak future. He was so small. Standing at full height he wouldn't even reach up to Joru's chin. Helpless.

Hard to belive this was the same boy who had cause such incredibly frightful damage to so many Aeesu-jin--all very dead now--just days ago. Joru could hardly believe he had been _scared_ of this boy; this small, bloody, dirty, pitiful boy.

But when Henning's eyes beheld this same, disheveled, half-conscious youth, his face beamed, his lips curled back in a smile, and he clapped his hands together twice saying, "Ho! That was quicker than I thought!"

He left Joru's side with half a dignified walk, and half a gleeful prance. He approached the group of Aeesu-jin, his eyes never leaving the frail form of the boy they led before them.

When Henning came into Gohan's view, life seemed to spring back to his eyes, fierce and firey, though subdued with pain. Fear, confusion, anger. The Tahch-jin grinned widely, delicious.

"You've given us quite a chase, Son Gohan," Henning said, crossing his arms and tilting his head at the same angle as the boy's, "Do you hear me?"

The boy, unable to manage a better reply, narrowed his eyes and pulled back his lips to show two rows of sharp teeth.

"Answer Henning-sama when he asked you something," the Aeesu-jin holding Gohan's wrists ordered, grabbing a handful of the boy's raven hair, forcing him to raise his head and look up.

Henning 'tsk'ed when his eyes landed on the long scar on the boy's cheek, "That's a nasty scrape." He raised his hand and gently rested his white fingertips against the boy's face, sliding them along the injury. In horror and revulsion, the boy tried to pull away, but the Aeesu-jin tightened his grip on his hair.

There was an absolute moment of silence, during which Gohan's heart sank into his kidneys, as the Tahch-jin pressed his palm against the boy's cheek and closed his eyes. The smooth skin, trembling under his touch, was everything he could have hoped for. Oh how this boy's spirit gleamed with life. Absolutely stunning. Now, Henning wanted to kill him _now_.

His hand slid from the boy's face to his neck. Henning could envision it, closing his long, white fingers around that thin throat. Feeling every emotion, every thought as it passed through the boy, until slowly the blood stopped flowing to his brain, and panic then death sank in. 

With a desperate summoning of power, Gohan tore his hand's free of the Aeesu-jin's grip and lunged, gathering what little chi he had left. If he could, he was going to kill Henning. Another number on his list, but to hell with that. This man had to die.

He didn't make it. 

An Aeesu-jin tail crashed down on his back, sending him to the floor. He tried to push himself up and attack, but a giant, knobby fist drove into him, right between his shoulderblades. A wave of pain ran down his spine, for a second he lost feeling in his legs. He clawed at the ground, trying to scramble away from his attackers. An Aeesu-jin, one of the largest of the group, put his foot on the small of his back putting his weight down.

Gohan lost his air, but was unable to inhale. He struggled, but there were colorful little movements lurking in his peripheral vision, distracting him. He couldn't focus on what he was doing. On the situation at hand. Just as darkness was enveloping him, the pressure on his back let up, he gasped raggedly, his whole body heaving as he coughed. Though his teeth were tightly pressed together, flecks of red escaped his mouth and splattered against the tiled floor.

He was pinned to the floor, his arms spread out at each side of him, large, strong, sharp hands pinning his upper arms and elbows, other hands on his wrists. His ankles, too. So many people were holding him down, their grips so tight they hurt, their wicked fingernails digging into his skin. He couldn't see, his eyes were closed and refusing to open. He was breathing noisily, little, "Huhn....huhn....huhn...." sounds escaping him. Sounds of pain. Fear. This just couldn't be happening to him.

Henning stood tall, straightened his coat, then kicked the boy in the ribs.

"Ahngnn....," Gohan groaned as pain washed up his body, he couldn't breath again; his body was constricting against the floor, but he was unable to curl up. He wanted so badly just to gather his knees against his chest, to encourage his body to stiffle the pain and breath. Just breath. That was all he wanted.

Henning circled the pinned boy, watching his thin back rise and fall as he gasped for air.

"Brother," Joru said almost pleasingly, "We really should just....kill him now. I mean, there's no use taking unneccesary risks...."

Henning, now in control of his notions, looked at his sibling, his eyes glittering, and he said, "_You_ lust for this boy's blood? Goodness, Joru dear, you surprise me more every day. Well, I don't want to kill this healthy young specimen just yet, but if you want to see him dead so quickly, you're welcome to do it."

Joru tried to raise the courage to say, "Maybe I will," but his eyes went down to the small shape of the boy, spread out on the floor like a rug, bloody and breathing heavy, small pained sounds escaping him with each breath. He looked tiny, fragile. His skin looked so pale against his black hair, interupted by the shocking red streaks of blood that ran the length of his body. The Tahch-jin knew he would never be able to kill this boy, even to rescue him from a fate worse than death.

"Didn't think so," Henning said, smiling, "Besides, he'll behave. Won't you, Gohan?"

A sound that reminded Joru frightfully of a snarl was the only answer the boy emited, reminding the gentler Tahch-jin that though the boy looked small, he was as feral as a wild animal, dangerious. But, oh kami, he was also doomed. 

**To be continued......**

   [1]: http://chelsee0.tripod.com



	22. CM22

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 22**

At first, Gohan was only aware of a cold floor. Not tiles. Sheets of metal. Harsh, ungiving, and frigid. He attempted to move, roll over and sit up, but his body would not respond. His legs were asleep, tingling, cold. His hands were....behind his back? Also asleep, painfully so. As feeling slowly came back to his body-- his skin pin-prickling painfully--memory also kicked in, like a sudden wave of freezing water, chilling his mind. 

Finding the good doctor, the riot, the killing, being shot in the leg. The fight between Heng and Henning's men, fighting for _him_, and finally a second confrontation with Henning. Then....oh, yes. The last thing he remembered--Henning ordering him beaten unconscious.

He was on his side, his cheek pressed against the cold floor in a small sticky puddle of blood. His blood. He knew it by smell. He tried again to move, get his tingly, numb hands under him; impossible. His hands were bound together, some sort of ultra-strong metal clamped around his wrists. He wasn't surprised. His mind was still pleasantly foggy; his body was only tingling, swollen, yes, but no real pain except in his right shoulder, which he laying on. Wait, small pain in the left calf. His tail throbbed dully, bruised. It had been stepped on. It was ignorable. His muddy mind was kind enough to let him remain blissfully unfeeling. 

He didn't want to think about where he was, what was going to happen. How long had he been out? The blood pooled around his cheeks was still pretty wet, though the edges of the small puddle were blackened and crisped. Perhaps an hour. He ran his tounge along the insides of his mouth, trying to figure out if he was still loosing blood from it. There was a putrid, bitter tasting layer along the roof of his mouth, along the backs of his teeth, on the backs of his lips, coppery tasting. Old blood. Nothing new. Two molars were loose. 

He had been out an hour? He wondered if he would be able to escape--in his current state, he was too dull to be pessimistic enough to realize his chances of escape were minimal--then realized he would probably be really late getting back to camp.

_Bojack's going to kill me_.......

He almost chuckled at the madness of worrying about Bojack killing him when he would probably die right here. He stiffled the urge to laugh, though his shoulders shook. No, he really shouldn't laugh. It was probably hysterics; laughter first, wreaking his body until he heaved and hurt. But then he might start whimpering. Maybe crying. No, he really shouldn't laugh.

One of his legs twitched on its own accord, shaking his entire body. The movement suddenly brought a wave of sharp pain across him, forcefully dragging him out of his half-conscious state of obliviousness. He felt everything now. And everything hurt. The floor beneath him, just by touching him, hurt. His muscles ached, his left calf throbbed, his tail seemed to pulse and boil with agony. He wanted to hunt down the man who had stepped on his tail and break everybone in his body.

Hell to his qualms against vengence, he was facing certain painful death. He was allowed to think about whatever freaking acts of violence against whoever he wanted.

He parted his lips, parched and dry, and groaned as a second, acute wave of pain crawled up his body.

"Good morning."

Gohan's body went rigid, and he tugged at the bonds on his wrists, moved his fingers, which were swollen as sausages from being bound at such an akward angle for so long. He knew that voice, oh kami, he _knew_. Henning. Henning was in the room with him. The boy's shoulders started heaving again as though laughter really was trying to force its way out of him; he was fighting against hyperventilation.

Foot steps behind him. Heels clicking loudly against the metal floor.

_Tock tock tock_....

They were getting closer to the boy, and whoever it was stopped a foot from him. Behind him. Gohan opened his eyes, sticky and crusty with old blood, but was unable to see much. Everything was fuzzy. He didn't need to see, he knew it was Henning standing behind him, above him. No doubt looking down at him, smiling.

The toe of Henning's boot prodded the boy in his arm, "You are conscious, right?"

Gohan closed his eyes again, hoping in the very depth of his heart that Henning would just go away. He heard the _tock tock tock_ of the boots circle him, a complete 360, and stop at his head. The boy opened his eyes again; the feet had stopped inches from his face. Black boots, probably steel-toe. He rolled his eyes to see the person standing above him, his body aching too badly to turn his head. It was Henning, alright. One boot moved under the boy's cheek and forced his head to turn and look up. 

Henning smiled when he saw the boy's eyes were open, "Good, for a second I thought you were just moaning in your sleep."

The Tahch-jin took three steps back, allowing Gohan to see him better. He was tall--six feet? seven?--and rather thin. Spindly. Perhaps it was the strange angle, but his arms and legs looked unproportionatly long, like a spider. A spider tending to his web. And Gohan was the fly, dangling helplessly, bound, waiting for its captor to move in apon it.

In Henning's hand was a strange looking staff, or perhaps a ceptre. A good inch diameter all along it's length, roughly two feet long. At the end of it, there was a peculiar glowing ball of white-green. At first, Gohan though it was a light bulb; Henning seemed insane enough to carry a light on a stick; but as his sight continued to clear, he saw it was far more than that. The light wasn't attached to the ceptre; it hovered a centimeter above the end of the staff, glowing brightly. Perhaps some odd concentration of chi? The boy's addled mind reached out and tasted the ball. Not chi, not really. Something like it, a distance cousin. Electricity, maybe.

Even as he watched it, a large spark leapt off the glowing orb and struck the ground, sizzled, spat, then vanished, leaving a black smear where it had landed.

"Ah, the glow of curiosity, even in the face of death," Henning said. He raised the staff so the glowing top pointed at the cealing, "This instument is called a Chah't ceptre."

Gohan didn't respond; he ran his tounge along the backs of his teeth again, tasted the bitter old blood. Tried thinking of something he could do--did he have the power in him to kill the Tahch-jin?--but his thoughts were sluggish. Like a race of molasses.

"Tell me, dear little Gohan," Henning said, pacing to the left, then to the right, his movements dominating Gohan's attention, "Where are you from? What are your parent's names?"

The luney little laugh threatened to take Gohan again. Why the hell would he tell Henning _that_? Did the Tahch-jin seriously expect an answer? He remained silent, then closed his eyes. He didn't want to watch the other pace before him like a hungry lion. Nevertheless, the _tock tock tock_ of those boots penetrated his hearing and tore into his mind.

Henning was circling him again. The click of his heels pounding against all sides of the boy's head like the throbs of a headache. Twice circling, three times. Even with his eyes closed he knew he was being inspected, looked at, scrutinized. Feeling uncomfortable, Gohan drew his knees closer to his chest, his tail looping around his ankles, wishing his arms were free so he could wrap them around himself. Even that small comfort was denied him.

"No answer already? I thought you would at least be cooperative enough to answer those simple quesions," though the boy didn't open his eyes, he knew Henning was smiling as he spoke, grinning like a cat. 

Henning was behind him again, Gohan heard the clicking foot-steps stop. There was a rustling; the Tahch-jin was kneeling, getting closer to the boy. Gohan squeezed his eyes shut tighter, his shoulders were shaking again, his whole body was throbbing as his heart began to slam viciously against his ribs.

Henning watched the boy's shoulders shake, surprised it was the only reaction he'd gotten from him since he had walked in. Stubborn little raskal, but so completly perfect, a masterpiece. The porceline white skin of his gentle young face looked like pure poetry against the backdrop of blood in which he rested his head. His ink-black hair added a lovely forground. Henning knew that this wonderful, beautiful, perfect boy was his chance to finish a work of art, to lay down the last strokes of paint to a perfectly decorated canvas. This boy, this Saiya-jin, Gohan, little Gohan. Perfect, delicious, so alive, young, so very alive. His. The work of art was his to finish. Then it would be completly perfect.

"You should be thanking me," Henning said, resting a cool hand against the boy's hot cheek; he had a slight fever, or perhaps all Saiya-jins felt so hot, "Just cooperate, and I'll make everything perfect, absolutely, completely perfect," he watched Gohan's shoulders rise and fall as he breathed, "You really should thank me."

His hand traced down the boy's sharp jaw, then rested on his neck, his fingers under the boy's chin, his thumb against the vertibre in the back of his neck. He could feel the youth's pulse, frantic, erratic, fast as a bird's. His own Tahch-jin heart excellerated. He could hardly believe it. The splendor, the joy; he opened his senses, savoring every emotion he drew forth. He was going to end this perfect thing. It would be grand, wonderful. Something never to be rushed. It had to be drawn out, elaborate, faultless. His crowning achievement.

Gohan was having a hard time breathing rapidly enough to keep up with his heart. His circulation was going too fast; he was light headed, but it was far from the pleasant fogginess he felt when he first woke up. Terror. The cold fingers on his neck were like the very hand of Death, horror, and they were trembling. Oh, kami, the cold fingers were trembling, shaking with eagerness, excitement. He felt Henning's heavy breathing on the back of his neck.

"Do you want to know what the Chah't ceptre does?"

Gohan pressed his lips tightly together, said nothing.

A humming sound buzzed in his left ear. A heavy sound, oppressive. _Vzzznnnnnnn_..... His skin prickled, and the ground beneath his head suddenly sparked his cheek. Electricity. He opened his eyes to see the glowing orb at the end of the Chah't ceptre hovering above him; millimeters from his eye. His hair stood on end, tugging at its roots, as though the ball was made of pure static. He felt its heat, but above that he felt the sound it was making. Such a dominant humming at such a short distance from his sensitive ears, it made him feel like his brain was being squashed flat.

"Why are you here, little Gohan?" Henning asked, rubbing his thumb along the back of the boy's neck, "Why are you on this planet?"

Gohan didn't answer; even if he had wanted to his entire body was too rigid to speak, to even move. Henning was silent for a moment, running his hand along the boy's neck, his fingertips tracing Gohan's chin, his knuckles along the scar on his cheek, his eyebrows. Tousling his hair. "You're what I've been looking for, the find of the millenium. What force brought you here? Brought you for me, that I was able to meet you? Why are you here?"

Again, the boy made no reply. His body was wrapped into as tight a ball as it could, his knees drawn up to his nose, his tail curled up between his legs, the furry tip touching his chin. His eyes remained squeezed tight. Henning's touch repulsed him, horrified him; upset his system in a way water would not be able to wash off. He was insane. More so than any other being he had ever contacted. Mad. A lunatic. A dangerious one; capable of unspeakable acts of violence. And because of that maddness, he was far more frightening than facing a thousand opponents twice, a hundred times, Gohan's own power.

Henning rocked back on his heels, "Not a word, hm? Not one?" He rocked forward and backward, forward, backward, watching the boy's shoulders rise and lower. "Fine. We can do it this way."

He leapt back to his feet, the Chah't ceptre remaining next to the boy's ear, saying, "Taste a bit of Tahch-jin technology." He rammed the instrument against the side of the boy's neck.

Finally, as a hissing noise erupted from the point of contact, Gohan made a sound. A scream. Almost inhuman in its force, his entire body suddenly arched backward, his legs kicking at the air, his arms twisting in their bonds, his body bending half-backward. His face contorted, his mouth opened so far his jaw looked unhinged as he screamed, writhing. Barely audible was the _vzzznzzzzz_ sound of the ceptre over the pained cries exploding from the small, twisting form. Bucking, kicking, straining against his bonds until blood ran from his wrists and from the horrible wound in his leg. His tail flapped at the ground, twisting, writhing like a worm in the sun.

Finally, Henning pulled the instrument away.

Gohan's body instantly stopped jerking; then wilted. Melted against the floor. Unmoving. His skin spazmed in little ripples up and down his body, along his back, his arms, painfully down his left leg; his fingers clawed into hooks as they began shaking against his back. He breathed through already damaged ribs, raggedly, his eyes unable to open. "Ahhn....nhhn....anhn....."

Henning watched him, expressionless, his golden eyes mirthful. He began circling the boy again, watching him from every angle, admiring his pale skin, his silky hair, his strained face, the soft moans of pain. Perfect, perfect.

"I own this planet, you know," He said, circling, circling, the clicking of his boots and the moans of the boy the only things filling the perfect silence, the perfect intensity. Oh, he was enjoying it. "At my fingertips, by just the push of a button, I could cause all the Underground to cave in over the Aeesu-jin's heads. Or I could make the sky suddenly cloud and rain. I could cause earthquakes, or tornadoes, of whatever I want. Or I could cause the entire place to explode into a fiery hell. Do you want to know why?"

Gohan gave no sign he heard the question, his breath continued to labor on, his skin occationally still rippled, his eyes stayed shut. But he heard. Each and every word reached him clearly. 

"Because the Aeesu-jin are idiots." Henning went on, "Thinking that by having a controlled environment they gain mastery over their surroundings. Even the weather, boy, can you imagine that? Well, I guess they didn't think about what would happen if an outside force happened to gain control of their precious technology. Too bad for them. Now that I have you, my perfect little specimen, I can destroy them and this planet at my leasure. Do you hear me? Little Gohan?"

Gohan remained motionless, unresponding, silent.

"I wonder," the Tahch-jin said, stopping before the boy's face, kneeling again, "Do you want to stop me? Will you try? Do you want to kill me? You won't be able to; you're mine now. All mi-_argkh_!"

Gohan had been waiting, even as the pain of his body coarsed through him, for Henning to get close enough. When the Tahch-jin kneeled so close and in such easy range, he struck, not caring about repercussions, not caring if it got him killed. He wanted Henning to stop, stop saying he owned him, stopped getting so close to him, stopped touching him and hurting him and just _being_ there. 

So with all the speed and force he had, he kicked with his good right leg, ramming his foot into the Tahch-jin's ribs.

The effect was almost satisfying, as the smug, gleeful smile on Henning's face contorted in pain, he doubled over sideways clutching his side, "Aah! Ahh! You! You hit me!"

Even as his enemy reeled, Gohan wondered if he had the energy to strike again--perhaps in the head? He began to bunch his leg up in preparation. But Henning wasn't about to be taken by suprise twice. Gripping his Chah't ceptre, his other hand pressed against his agonizing ribs, he rammed the sphere against the boy, repeatedly; pulling it away then jabbing again, banging the glowing ball against Gohan's sides, his neck, his head, his legs; hacking and beating at him rigorously, frenzied, screaming, "You hit me! You hit me!"

_BzzznnnZZzznvsssnnSSzzZn_.....

His words were inaudible under the louder screams erupting from Gohan, as his body bucked and contorted, writhed, twisted, his muscles straining then relaxing, then straining again. Blood ran from his wrists where his bonds bit through his skin, and more blood ran from the deep, burnt hole in his leg as his thrashing tore it more, again and again, adding further pain to his dilemma. It was agonizing, horrible, painful. His mind was white, his skin felt like it was burnt to a black char, stars flashed before his vision as his convulsing banged his head continuously against the ground. He was on fire! Burning to ash in non-existant fire.

Henning paused, staggered away from Gohan for a second, heaved. The boy could not see him, but he recognized the sound of splattering blood; his attack must have done more damage than he thought. Henning was coughing up blood. Finally, the Tahch-jin uprighted himself, standing tall, though he kept one hand under his arm, against his side. 

"You," he said, his voice full of anger, "You've done a very, _very_ bad thing. A stupid thing. Oh, you really _shouldn't_ have _done_ that."

He stalked toward the boy, still gasping as pain exploded from different parts of his body. Henning kicked him in the back, driving his boot between the boy's shoulderblades. He kept talking as he brought back his foot and kicked a second time, "You _really_-" he rammed his foot into the boy's back again, lower, into his ribs "-_shouldn't_ have-" Gohan gasped in pain as the force of the blow lifted him from the ground and rolled him onto his stomach "-_hit me_!" He kicked a third time, "How dare you!" His blow connected with the boy's shoulder, "How_ dare_ you hit me!" He kicked the boy again, lower, in the thigh. "You hit me!" Again, in the soft area between the ribs and the hip bone. "You hit me!" Again in the shoulder, so hard the boy's body was lifted from the ground again and pitched another foot, landing on his side.

Staggering, Henning stepped back to survey the damage he had inflicted.

The boy wasn't moving; at first glance he might have appeared dead. His skin was deathly pale, gray. His face was smashed in the puddle of blood that ran afresh from his nose and mouth. A gurgle was the only sound the he made as he breathed. Where the Tahch-jin's boots had struck him, the skin was already swelling, small spots of blood forming along the welts where it had torn. His tail was curled up between his legs like a humbled dog, making him look smaller, yet.

Henning's anger seeped away into nothingness at the sight. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. It was supposed to be controlled, elaborate, artistic. Beautiful. It wasn't supposed to be brute strength hammering against some creature tied down so it could not fight back. That was wrong. That was murder. This boy deserved so much more than that. Henning felt shamed.

"You shouldn't have hit me," he said, though not aware that his attempt at appology was the same thing he screamed while he was doing it, "I don't respond well when violence is inflicted on me."

In a strange moment of crystal clearity, Henning saw that the boy was still conscious, his eyes open and bright, as though the brutal beating he had taken had done nothing to his soul. For what was pain to the body for a soul of gold? Henning's hands were shaking, in fear as much as awe. He suddenly didn't feel worthy of being in the boy's presence after such unforgivable behavior. 

He slowly walked backwards towards the door, his golden eyes locked with the boy's gleaming ebony. Too perfect. Frighteningly, fully, wholly perfect. Oh, kami, what he had was more precious than he had thought. Think. He needed time to think. Oh, kami, so perfect.

He opened the door and backed out of the room, the youth's eyes began to shut and when the door slid automatically between them, his eyes were closed completely.

* * *

Joru Le'Armont's mind was in turmoil. He had been unable to stay to watch the stomach-twisting sight of the helpless boy being forcefully rendered unconscious. He had left. Ran, actually. Horrified, repulsed, unable to allow his eyes even one more glance at the bloody little boy, he escaped to his room where he washed his hands and arms and face six times, as though trying to rid himself of the gory sights he had seen. He stayed there half an hour before venturing out to find his brother.

Apon finding Henning, he begged him one more time to just kill the boy--unfruitfully--he had been left with no choice other than to follow behind Henning's curtails as the stronger sibling led the way down the hall to Gohan's cell, where the poor child had been left to his injuries. Henning, horrible, cruel Henning, had even suggested Joru accompany him in--_in_--to the boy's cell to watch first hand as his torment began. The gentler Tahch-jin had forcefully declined, but after his brother had vanished within he made himself wait outside the door. 

Did the boy know, he wondered, that there was a person on his side, just on the other side of the wall? Did he know that Joru was silently standing there, wishing there was some way he could help him, save him, but just didn't have the courage to do so? 

With a sudden crystal clearity, he remembered the first time he met Son Gohan. And then he remembered something the boy had said, and each word remembered stung the Tahch-jin like a knife in his heart.

_Despite what you must think of me, I'm not a killer. I don't want to have to kill you, or anyone else, but I will if you try to stop me. Don't let your dignity get in the way of your judgment, because I've seen people's pride kill them just as surely as a blast of chi. The Tahch-jin may be a great people, but if they were the greatest, you wouln't be shaking like that_

Joru had heard the words, but at that time he didn't listen to them. Now that they sank in, they hurt. Son Gohan was a good person. The realization was tormenting him. A good person, only trying to survive and help his allies to do the same. A good boy, a good person, yes, even a good soldier. He faught. He faught better than Joru had thought possible, but he faught for peace. He faught for life. He faught for everything Henning wanted to destroy. A good person, clever. More. Despite his youth, he was more than clever. Wise. Life had taught him harshly, but he remembered its lessons, and applied them. Son Gohan earned himself the right to live in this world.

And it was destroying Joru. 

The door to the boy's cell slid open, and Henning walked out, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, one hand crossed over his ribs; he walked stooped over, his face wrinkled with pain, his eyes pinched in the corners.

"Henning, what-"

"Shut up," Henning interupted, causing Joru to flinch. His brother had never spoken roughly to him before. "Ahg....That boy....I think he broke one of my ribs. I'm going to see our medics....ooonn...."

Joru did not move to help his brother down the hall to the medical chambers; rather, he hung back, watching Henning as he staggered down the hall, stooped over, one hand supporting him against the wall. Slowly the other Tahch-jin dissappeard around a turn.

Joru realized he was feeling happy Henning was suffering. It was actually quite surprising. Before now, he had never even _considered_ violence as a way of punishment for a fellow Tahch-jin--especially his brother!--but now, as he began to realize he and Son Gohan were on a different side than Henning, it was just. Right. Fair.

But Joru felt it wasn't enough.

Henning had been injured, but the boy was still the ultimate victim. Poor child, condemned, cornered, hopeless..... Joru wasn't aware he was considering what he was until he had opened the door of the boy's cell and slipped inside, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one saw him. 

Inside, the lights were dim, and the Tahch-jin's eyes took a moment to adjust; but his senses were already reeling. The cell smelled of blood, horror, and the perculiar smell of burnt ozone that came off the Chah't ceptre. When his eyes adjusted, he was at first frozen in horror. The boy was more cadaver than child. His skin almost as gray as the metal sheets beneath his head, blood covering the floor, his face, his clothes. His hair was matted to the side of his face, sticky, tangled.

"Oh, kami, kami....," Joru said, a hand over his mouth. He ran forward towards the boy, but stopped before he touched him. He didn't know what he was doing. Why was he in here? He didn't belong here. His robe was dragging behind him in the blood, it's ends and corners already turning frightful red. He remembered something Henning had said to him.

_You don't want to get your perfect hands dirty. You don't want any blood there, because you can never wash blood away. Ever. Have you ever killed someone, brother? Ever felt the memories of blood on your palm? No? You've never lived. You've never truely lived_.....

Joru shivered, but remained in the bloody room, smelling of death, not for his own sake, but because he felt he owed it to the boy. He was only seeing the wreck after the crash, Son Gohan had suffered through it. It was this boy's blood that covered the floor, and this boy's blood that filled the air with the thick, coppery smell, and it was this boy's screams that Joru had heard on the other side of the door way as Henning mercilessly brutalized him, enjoying every cry of pain with sadistic pleasure.

The Tahch-jin became aware of a soft gurgling sound; the boy's breathing. He was still alive. For now. But Joru found no comfort, no relief, in that fact. How long would the boy have until Henning came back to continue?

It was then that Joru first developed a mutinous thought. And the instant the notion took him, he swooped down, pulling a chain of keys from a fold in his robe, and unlocked the bonds on the boy's torn wrists. Gohan let out a sound, a half groan, half sigh, as his arms came around to his front, then wrapped around his knees. His eyes slowly slid open, fevered, hazy, and he looked up at Joru in confusion and more than a little apprehention. The Tahch-jin took three steps backward, giving the boy space.

Joru took a fourth step back when the small form jerked suddenly, and the listless, catatonic look vanished from the boy's pale features, replaced by a sharper, more aware appearance. His body started trembling uncontrolably, and for a moment he could only bury his face in his knees.

The Tahch-jin half held out a tentative hand, wishing he could put his hand on the boy's shoulder, try to comfort him, to reassure him, but withdrew it. Instead he folded his hands behind his back and looked over his shoulder at the door. For a moment, he feared that perhaps Henning would come storming back in and become enraged at the betrayal by his own brother. But the door stayed shut. The only two people in the room were the shivering, bloody boy and the Tahch-jin, who was quiet pale on his own.

The boy stirred again, gathered his arms under him and pushed himself up to sitting. Slowly. The corners of his eyes were pinched, expressing the agony of even such a simple movement. He was still shivering, but more than that Joru saw his skin twitching, spazming, rippling wildly across his body. A particular tick had developed in his cheek, and a second beside his eye.

Now sitting, the boy looked down at his wrists, ran his fingertips over the shredded skin where the bonds had torn. His tail slowly, tenderly twined around his waist, came to rest in his lap, the tip poking around like a blind snake. The boy wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and looked with dull distaste at the blood he found there. His body heaved, and a dry cough, sounding something like the weeze of a dying animal, shook his body. Then a second time. Then a third. Mercifully, he turned away from Joru as a fall of crimson built up in the back of his throat and forced its way out between his teeth.

It seemed to take supreme effort, but the boy lifted his head, his heavy but sharp eyes meeting the Tahch-jin's. He licked his lips, opened his mouth and tried to say something, but the his voice was strangled. It sounded like he had swallowed a hand-full of gravel, chased it with a mug of salt, then went three days without food or water in an arid desert. The attempt to speak wracked him with a second coughing fit, and he held his fist over his mouth out of a polite habit that really didn't have a place in such a coarse situation. 

He cleared his throat a few times, coughed intentionally to loosen whatever clog remained in his traechia, swallowed, licked his lips again, then asked with effort, 

"Why?" 

His voice was hardly a whisper.

"Because I don't think it's right that my brother kills people."

The boy closed his eyes and shook his head, _No_, that wasn't what he was asking. He asked again, carefully pronouncing each word, "Why does _he_ want to kill me?" When he said 'he' his face contorted and his quiet voice almost spat the word out like poison. Joru didn't have to guess who _he_ was. He knew. Henning.

The problem was, Joru didn't know. He didn't know why Henning was such a maniac. He just always had been.

The boy started speaking again, his voice seemed to have partially returned. It was a quiet voice, Joru was sure it was soft even when not stressed. And polite. Soothing. The kind of voice you expect the thin crecent of a moon to have. 

"There's got to be a reason," the small voice said, "Some reason he wants to hurt me. There always is a reason." The troubled look on his face prooved just how much this question bothered him. "People have wanted to kill me before....," here his voice cracked and he paused to clear his throat, then he continued, "But they always had a reason, even if it was petty, or twisted, or unjust. Always reasons. Because of who my father is...was..., or because of what I am, or what I'm not, or what I don't want to be. Or because I stand in their way. Or because they want revenge. But Henning.....I just don't....... I just don't understand why he would be _so_- " His voice rose with each word until his voice cracked again and his voice stopped completely. The last two or three words he uttered were mouthed without sound. 

He cleared his throat, but did not try to repeat himself, burying his face in his hands instead and rubbed his temples, picking at dried blood with his nails, then running his hands into his hair.

Joru rubbed his palms together behind his back. Quietly he said, "Though trying to figure out people like my brother is nearly impossible..... Well, I have a theory." The boy looked up from under his hands. He didn't say anything, but his eyes begged an answer, "My brother...well, he seems to think your....special. I have to admit, there something particular about you, but Henning had recently been nothing short of obsessed."

The boy shuddered. Joru wished he hadn't started talking, but felt it important to always finish a statement.

"You're like a bright light," he continued, "You shine as you go along you way. But where there's a light, there's a shadow. And with a light as bright as yours....well, I think Henning is your shadow of sorts. He wants to be the darkness in your bright."

Gohan shook his head, "That's wrong. I am my own shadow." But even as he said it he felt it was slightly wrong. If light was goodness, and darkness was evil, then neither described him as he depicted himself. He wasn't the bright, shining light his father was, unmarred by the darkness around him, always raging and winning against the darkness around him. Yet Gohan also knew that deep down, he wasn't evil. Perhaps not quite in control of his power. Emotional. But the son of Son Goku wasn't evil.

Remembering his father gave him a sudden surge of humiliation at being so helpless. 

Slowly, slowly he gathered his right leg under himself, his left leg dragging limply behind, then slower still he stood, wincing, his face pinched with pain. His tail hung limply behind him. His breathing was strained and raspy, rattled. But for a moment he was standing. But he wasn't thinking of that.

Remembering his father always brought back the memory of his death, and the circumstances behind it. The quiet belief that he didn't really have evilness in him suffered a potentially mortal blow. Maybe he had a little darkness in him after all, considering how he intended to deal with Cell. Maybe more than a little. As though on cue, he saw shadows dancing into his pereferal vision, as though climbing out of him and over his eyes.

His knee buckled. 

Joru was surprised then the boy suddenly started falling. Instantly reacting, he reached forward and caught the boy's slender shoulders before he hit the ground. He steadied Son Gohan, but his own mind had gone white. Terror gripped him. Revulsion crept across his heart and stomach. 

His bare hands were on the boy's bare arms. His bloody, torn, bruised bare arms. The Tahch-jin felt the sticky blood under his own palms. Warm. His skin was hot. His abused muscles were solid as stong. Joru felt the boy regain balance on his right leg. And then he felt, _felt_, Son Gohan. Felt his mind, his past, and his pain. His fear, hesitation, ambition, pride, humiliation, determination, his youth, his life, his grief even as the boy thought of his father.

In a hollow voice, not knowing even why he said it or where the words came from ,"Mind of a scholar; heart of a warrior; soul of a pacifist. Son Gohan...." Joru felt a warm tear slid down his cheek. 

The words struck something somewhere deep inside the boy. He took a step backwards, tearing his arms loose from Joru's grip. Those three statements made his throat constrict, made him feel enlightened and hopeless at the same time. Le'Armont was crying. It took Gohan a moment to realize his eyes were leaking, too.

Tears streaming easily down his face now, Joru looked to the wall on the far side of the room and raised his hand, concentrating his chi. He wasn't as strong as his brother, but he had trained. He knew how to fight. He played simulations. And he knew what had to be done. Clearer than anything he had ever known.

He blasted, incinerating the wall before it had a chance to crumble inward or explode. All was silent in the room for a moment as both of them stared at the hole the Tahch-jin had made.

"Go left, three doors on the right is an exit. Since were on the top floor of the Underground, you'll be led right outside." Joru said.

The boy looked at him, surprised, swiping his hand under his eyes to remove the wet evidence of his weakness. "You....you're..."

"Letting you go. But for Kami's sake, you must go now before they find your missing."

Gohan limped heavily toward the crude exit, paused, looked back, "If your brother finds out you betrayed him-"

"He won't if we don't tell him. Please. Live."

Gohan nodded finally. Smiled weakly, and limped as quickly as he could around the corner.

Joru said a prayer for the first time in over twenty years as he hurried out of the cell and to his room to change his clothes and wash himself. A full shower. It wouldn't be enough. It never would.

_You don't want to get your perfect hands dirty. You don't want any blood there, because you can never wash blood away. Ever_........

Joru ferverently prayed aloud in Tahch-go as he ran.

**To be continued.........**


	23. CM23

Contradicting Mission

For some reason, ffn isn't allowing me to use the "hr" (horizontal line) mechanism. -_-

-------------------

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 23**

To summarize a word to fit Gohan's situation, 'swollen' would hit a marker. It wasn't merely his physical state--though his entire body was becoming puffy and numb, a welcomed change to the sharp, blinding pain through which he had been mucking--but his thoughts were also hexed with bloated irritation. A dull, thick awareness that wouldn't quite be acknowledged, but wouldn't quite go away.

He was sure this was what it felt like to rot. His skin, mottled with protruding bruises and lacerated with wicked cuts, was white as a sheet, and looked very much like something would were it festering. As though any minute, he would be jarred and a quivering blob of old flesh would fall from his bones. 

It was fortunate he was unable to totally comprehend his musings; it was the type of looney thought he tried hard to avoid. Still, deep down he wished he could think through the thick, bloated feeling in his mind, find some way to pierce through his mental block and find comfort in reason and calculation--there there seemed to be little logic in what was going on anymore. When he had been talking to the Tahch-jin, the timid one, Joru Le'Armont, he had been reasonably sharp. Almost as good as new. 

However, nearly the instant he had staggered around the corner, all conscious thought had fled, leaving him with nothing more than an empty head and a broken body. He moved jerkily, his shoulders swaying unevenly as he dragged his left leg--as good as dead weight--behind him.

Vaguely, in some part of his mind, he remembered Joru's dicrections of escape.

_"Go left, three doors on the right is an exit. Since were on the top floor of the Underground, you'll be led right outside." _

He managed the left turn, one bloody hand pressed against the wall to support him. Fifty feet had never seemed so long. Somehow, through the haze of his eyes and the swollen uncooperativeness of his mind, he managed it. Ticking off one door, two doors, three doors on the right, he reached the door that, if the Tahch-jin spoke truth, was his means of escape.

It couldn't possibly be this easy. Infiltrating, coming in, entering the Tahch-jin fortress had been so difficult, every single time he tried, and leaving had always been harder....Why, now, that he was broken and beaten, was it so simple? He wasn't sure if it was rightious concern, paranoia, of just him looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Either way, though Joru had told him in advance it would be, Gohan was utterly shocked and surprised when, after hitting the door-open mechanism, he found himself faced with sun light, wide open spaces and a breeze that eagerly rushed in through the door way to merrily greet him. He closed his eyes, not because the garish sun light was so much more potent than the halogens above him, but just because he wanted to soak it in.

It smelled delicious. The sun on his eye lids like sweet water to a parched throat.

But then his eyes traveled downward. The door had been carved into the wall of the steep incline of a mountain, close to its summit, and the drop from the door way to ground at the foot of the nearly 90 degree drop couldn't have been less than sixty feet. More likely it was around seventy. A very long fall for anyone, much less someone as wounded as Gohan.

He didn't know if he had the energy to fly. But there was little option.

He gathered his good leg under him, lowered his body to the ground, then _heaved _himself forward, into the air. 

It was surprising; he had less chi than he thought he would. He had been low on chi before, hundreds of times; had been forced to drag whatever dredges of power he had left to be able to walk, limp, or shuffle off the battle field once things were over, or had to allow himself to pass out to regain energy.

But he had never been actually forced to fly on power that could not support him.

Still, he was hovering, his arms grasping at the air as he floundered for the chi needed to land gently. Too far from the door to go back, unable to go back even if he had been closer, he was ten, fifteen, twenty feet from the rocky surface. Farther still as he tried to get enough control to start declining. His head was spinning, his eyes were getting heavy. He was using up too much power sustaining himself, too much to keep his head clear....

His chi collapsed, and he fell.

He didn't know if he would have been better off free-falling the seventy feet to the rocks beneath, but he would never know. Less than ten feet of falling, his body struck a rocky outcrop. The sharp, eroded stone lay open his skin, but before he could cry out he slammed against a second craige. 

He was falling down the mountainside now, picking up speed and momentum, his body tossed from one chink to another like a rag doll, inconsiderate of his wounds and uncaring of his moment of weakness. He was sliding down sideways, his rightside facing down the slope, his left side looking up at its summit. His legs crashed into another stone, and his entire body fish-tailed, spinning in a series of 360 rotations, dirt and pebbles and stone tossed into the air as his bloody hands scrambled at the rocks and loose dirt to stop himself. He couldn't get himself to breath. 

As he was going down head first, his shoulder struck a larger craige, and with his momentum his legs were hurled up and over his head, and his back came crashing down, nearly crushing his vertibre on the stones. Now sliding down on his back, heading feet first for another, much larger outcrop of stone. Using every aching fiber of his strength he brought his feet down hard against the craige. 

For a split second, he managed to stop, but then all the loose dirt and rocks and sediment and pebbles and sand that had been following him down the mountian in a miniature avelanche came crushing down on his shoulders and head, for a moment covered his face completely, then it got under him, picked him up from the dirty ground, and hurled him up and over the large craige like a dry tidal wave. It didn't lift him high enough.

He saw it coming before it struck him, but there was no way to avoid it; he was too weak and the avelanche behind him was too strong. He crashed bodily into the craige. He thought he heard something goosh in his stomach, and blood exploded from his mouth. He didn't remember much of the rest of his decent, except that he had lost the ability to control his body. He was limp, totally at the mercy of the rocky mountain.

---------------------

Henning Le'Armont opened his eyes in the medical bay, instantly awake; he remembered everything that had happened since he fell asleep. He sent his hand tenderly seeking along his side for the swollen proof that Son Gohan really had struck him. Apon finding the lump--he knew without looking that it was dark purple and black, he leaned back in his bed and relaxed. 

Perfect little Son Gohan. It wasn't a dream. He really owned him. The bruise on his side--luckily not a broken bone, but still extremely painful--was proof that it wasn't a dream. He really owned him; really owned that thin whisp of a dream. Bloody. Beautiful. Broken. Curious. Bound. Young. Perfect. Perfect. His. Son Gohan. Little Saiya-jin. 

The Tahch-jin no longer felt anger toward the boy, and he no longer felt regret that he had so viciously punished him for attacking. Perhaps the first couple of days--when the boy had the most spirit--there would be rough spots. But after a week, little Gohan would be broken, and the understanding that Henning was the master would set it. Before he died, that boy _would_ thank Henning. For everything.

The Tahch-jin was smiling when the sentry entered the room, followed closely by Joru.

"Brother...," Joru said, "There's some bad news."

Henning sat up in bed, a flood of forboding crossing his system. He somehow knew what they were going to say, and he didn't want to hear it. He had known it was too good to be true.....

"The...prisoner. Son Gohan," the sentry said, "Has escaped."

Henning screamed and threw himself to his pillow. He was crying.

------------

Gohan came to sneezing. 

There was a peculiar stillness to the air, the type of silence that radiates after a catastrophy has struck...or is about it strike. His ears were ringing. He was covered in rocks and dirt. The air was thick with air born dust--the cause of his sneezing. The very act of opening his eyes was strenuous. He was on his stomach, his face pressed into the ground; while on top of him was some hundred pounds of rock and stone and other depris that had followed him down the mountain side.

When he lifted his head slightly, the dirt stuck to the blood on his face. Fresh blood, still wet, freshly escaped from his nose and mouth. His body ached beyond belief, his shoulder muscles couldn't strain hard enough to escape the stones pressing down on his body. After ten minutes of futile struggling, he gave up and went limp, allowing his face to smash back into the cold dirt and his eyes to close.

He wanted to cry. Seriously. He wanted to be home so badly, to be with his mother, to sleep in his own bed, to eat and study and walk and swim and fly around at his own will, not worrying about saving anyone or protecting the planet. He was whimpering, his shoulders were shaking. Two tear drops washed streaks through the mud on his face. It felt so hopeless. 

No. 

He was Son Goku's son, it didn't matter if he didn't want to, he had to represent his father, in front of himself as much as others. It didn't matter if he wasn't strong enough, he would just pretend he was. He wasn't good enough, but it didn't matter. He was also Piccolo-san's pupil. He had been taught better than this. He should be strong.

But instead of strengthening him, these thoughts made his body heave harder. He was hyper ventilating, breathing hysterically to avoid screaming or crying or wailing or hurting himself. A third tear ran down his dirt streaked face. He felt like a failure; not worthy of claiming to be Piccolo's student; not good enough to be Son Goku's child. His shoulders were shaking, his breath was coming out in dry heaves, blood was dripping from his mouth. He was probably going to die here.

Still, beyond his understanding why, he started struggling against the crushing weight on top of him again. He got his elbow under himself, pushed, strained, forced himself upward until he was sure the muscles in his back and shoulders would shred into frayed ruination.....

One by one, the rocks on top of him rolled away, and finally, with a last jerk of supreme effort he managed to get his legs under him. With that power, he was finally able to stand. But he was utterly exhausted. 

----------------

Three survivors. Of the entire fleet of mature, well trained, combat Aeesu-jin, there was three survivors.

For that, Heng was mad.

He sat in Heaven, surrounded by his most favored secretaries, in silence, holding the elaboratly carved crystal goblet, half filled with a deep red wine, not drinking. Not admiring the subtle, sensual carvings of sleek Aeesu-jin alonst the arm of his chair. He was thinking, his eyes pinched.

Not only had only three survive the mission to kill a boy--_a single child!_--and not only had they failed, they had also returned with the news that a large group of traitorous Aeesu-jin were now under the command of a Tahch-jin called 'Henning.' They had sold their loyalty to someone not even an Aeesu-jin.

For that, Heng was irate.

Slowly, he lifted his goblet to his mouth and took a sip too dainty for one his size. It didn't matter. He didn't taste the wine. It was an action the other men in the room, frightened into silence by the sheer intensity of his power, expected of him. He was Heng, he would continue to act like the deity he was, he would remain regal and calm.

Worse, it seemed someone had hacked into his computer's system--his _personal_, unimpregnable, exclusively rigged mega-computer--and had diverted all control to an unknown source, thereby stealing the control he had of the planet's atmosphere and everything below it. His control of the elements had been stollen.

For that, Henning was rageful.

He lowered the goblet to the arm of his chair where he set it down quietly, then folded his arms across his considerable stomach, and lowered his head as though deciding to succumb to his daily meditation.

Somewhere out there, Bojack, the man who decemated Heaven itself with murder of an Aeesu-jin, the man who dared to lift his chin to Heng, God, Kami-sama himself, and snort, was still at large; free, safe, and probably laughing his ass off that he and his comrades were safe and sound whilst Heng was suffering.

For that, Heng was severely pissed.

He whipped his hand out, grabbed the ornate, beautiful goblet from its dainty seat and heaved it at the ground, where it shattered into a million sparkling pieces, causing every man in the room to jump in their seats as they looked, startled, down at the gleaming ruins.

"Someone clean that mess up right now!!" Heng bellowed, and three of the Aeesu-jin immidiatly began crawling on their hands and knees, trying to collect the pieces into their hands while another ran from the room to fetch a broom. The worms. Heng despised them for their failure, even if they weren't directly responsible.

His deep red eyes remained centered on one particularly noticable shard of crystal that the other Aeesu-jin just didn't seem to notice. The light caught it just right, and it gleamed into Heng's eye in defiance. It reminded him of the gleam he had seen in the eyes of Son Gohan and Bojack as they stood before days ago. 

Heng's tail, despite how bloated and akward it looked, moved with incredible grace and speed as it rose from where it hung across the arm of his chair, arched through the air, and crashed down on the disrespecting shard of crystal, crushing it to a fine, white powder.

He would do no less when he found Bojack and Son Gohan.

----------------

It was the morning of the third day Gohan was missing.

Garlic had remained near camp, never close enough that Sunow or his children might attempt striking up a conversation, but always within sight. He sat, legs crossed, his hands clasped in his lap, his eyes closed. He was searching for the chi of Son Gohan.

And he was finding nothing.

Garlic was far older than he looked, hundreds of years; he had patience, he had confidence, he was immortal. He knew the gaki was probably hiding his chi like the good little Earthling he was. It was the smart thing to do, even on a planet with creatures who couldn't recognize what chi felt like.

Still, he had been sitting in the same spot for these past three days straight now, his musings growing darker with each day that blasted boy was missing. Three days. Too long. Something must have happened.

He didn't really know why he kept troubling his mind with it. If the boy were already dead, he and the other two would be in Hell by now... There was no concern. Still, the queston would not leave him. Where was Son Gohan?

As much as Garlic was perplexed, he knew that each passing hour wound Bojack tighter. The Biraju-jin didn't sleep, he didn't eat, and, after the first day, he never left the camp. He paced, his hands behind his back, his eyes on the ground, a scowl creasing his forehead. He seemed to be growing, swelling with his anger. Only Garlic was aware of the dark chi radiating from him.

No one went near Bojack.

But on that third morning, he suddenly stopped pacing.

"That does it," he said, "That does it." It didn't sound like a yell, so calm he might as well have just finished meditating. But it radiated to everyone in the camp; Freeza and Sunow's conversation ceased, Forester and Eesei looked up from the game they had scratched into the dirt. Garlic opened one eye, breaking his meditation. Everyone knew the blue giant wasn't finished talking.

Bojack said, continuing, "A day and a night. Whether the bozu shows up or not, we attack tomarrow morning. He has a day and a night. He doesn't make it by then, chances are he never will; not without _help_." He paused, smiling for the first time in days. He took a certain pleasure in having to save the troublesome boy, Garlic realized. Probably a dominance thing: Son Gohan had never had to rescue Bojack.

The Biraju-jin was frightfully mighty, and as Garlic knew on many levels, he was just as evil as any demon from hell. The gremlin liked him for that. Almost like finding a kindred spirit. "Sounds good to me," Garlic said.

Freeza was less eager to agree. He had been commander and leader; nearly god; for hundreds of years, clever and quick to strike, always one to move in on the week spot, always keeping a vigil for a danger. It didn't sound smart. Attacking was their only option, perhaps even a head on charge was under way, but as far as the Aeesu-jin could see, there was no plan.

What was an attack without a goal? To kill the Tahch-jin? They didn't even know where the Tahch-jin were. Somewhere in the Underground; deep, deep beneath the Underground, somewhere in the millions of miles of subterrainian tunnels. Freeza had doubts the Biraju-jin knew just how large the Underground was.

Bojack's intensity shook Sunow to his core. He was still angry, rageful perhaps, that Son Gohan hadn't returned yet--judging from Bojack's last reaction to Gohan being gone for a single day, Sunow was afraid what would happen to the boy if--_when, when_, he reminded himself, not if, _when_--he returned to camp after three days of absence. But, though he didn't know why, the gentle Tahch-jin was almost sure that _when_ Gohan returned, he would know what to do. 

Nevertheless, depending on a thirteen year old boy to save the day and the world was nerve-wracking.

Sunow began nerviously chewing his lip. Freeza went into Son Gohan's capsule house for water. Forester grabbed his sister's attention back up in their game. Bojack, his piece spoken, returned to anxious pacing. Garlic closed his eyes, returning to his meditation.

They all awaited Gohan's return.

--------------

To Son Gohan, his agony was everying he precieved as he walked, his feet dragging each step over the rocky, bare terrain. It was overwhelming. Covering him from the outside in; eating away at his nerves with horrible little nibbles. He kept his eyes closed, couldn't open them, even if he could remember how. He didn't want to have to see anything, the light hurt his eyelids, his pores were clogged with blood and grit. There was dirt in the horrible wound on his leg, ground in deep. 

His face was crusted with the dried-out child of mingled dirt and blood; a foul sludge when it was wet, worse crusted. He stank. Reeked of old blood; he could taste it in his mouth, smell it, feel it. Occationally he felt the warm wetness on his left leg, informing him he was still bleeding. Everying was pain and blood. Sometimes more the former, sometimes more the latter, but always one, and always both. And always it was on him, in him, around him, and following him. He felt it, even when he was sure he was unconscious.

Sometimes he knew he was walking, where he was going, and why, but others there was only a thin line between him and that tempting, seductive darkness that melted itself against his thoughts, slowing them down. He was walking the rail between conscious and unconscious and he wasn't sure why he hadn't fallen yet.

Some part of him was guiding him, his sense of direction told him where to go, even if he couldn't think of it consciously. Walking. His toes dragging through the dirt. Walking. His legs slowly carrying him along. Walking. A breeze tugging at his matted hair. Walking. Blood and grit embedded in his pores. Walking.

He risked opening his eyes. In the distance, he saw the white, domed out-line of his capsule house.

---------------

Garlic, keeping the vigil, saw him first.

He looked horrible. Like a walking corpse, a cadaver in motion. There wasn't a spot on him untouched by blood, and sticking to his blood was dirt, mixed, a deep red mud. Crusted over his face. Ground into his clothes. Matted to his hair. His nose had been bleeding.

He was staggering, one leg dragging behind him uselessly while the other barely seemed able to keep his body erect and moving. One of his eyes was closed, the other was squinted and pinched with pain. His lips were drawn back, exposing his teeth to his molars. 

"Son Gohan!" Sunow exclaimed as he, too, saw the cadaverious boy approaching. The remaining camp-members' attention abandoned its previous devotion as the Aeesu-jin's conjection reached their ears. They turned and looked, disbelieving.

Gohan had returned to camp.

**To be continued........**


	24. CM24

Contradicting Mission

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 24**

Gohan was hardly aware his feet were no longer touching the ground. He certainly wasn't aware he was dangling a good half-meter _above_ the ground, held up by Bojack, whose blue fingers were burried into either of his arms, fingernails breaking the already abused skin. The Biraju-jin shook him a second time, "I _said_ 'what happened?!'"

His eyes were open, the boy realized. Bojack was shaking him so hard his teeth rattled, and the sky rolled back and forth crazily above him. He was asking a question, Gohan was pretty sure. He wanted to know....where he had been, why he was so dirty. When the blue giant stopped shaking him, he also dropped him, letting his tortured form fall to the ground, crumpling to his knees. On his knees at Bojack's feet.

He was too far removed to realize just how humbled he appeared; broken, bleeding, prostrate before the mightier foe. He was only aware that he hurt, and if he didn't say something he would hurt worse.

"Give me five days."

He must have caught his voice box by surprise, for he was able to get a substantial amount of sound out with his words.

"What?" Bojack's voice said somewhere above him. Sounded mad. Sounded deadly.

"I know....how," his voice had none of the volume behind it now, just a thin whisper, like that of a dry, brittle leaf, "We can take down the Tahch-jin....I know....how."

Gohan heard Bojack take a breath, and the menacing edge of his anger, reflected in his chi, lessened, though remained smoldering, close to the surface. Magma ready to erupt, but, for the present, dormant. 

"We've postponed our attack already waiting for you, now you need five more days?" The Biraju-jin was saying.

"Yes."

"Why should we wait? I don't need your pitiful help; I can take the Tahch-jin down myself."

"I know where," Gohan paused to catch his breath, "I know where they are. And I know....more." He would have loved telling in lengthy detail--skipping the indepth version of his capture--all that he knew, and all that he was scheming even as he pleaded with Bojack. But his breath was failing him, talking even this minute amount made him light-headed. "I know how to absolutely win."

Silence prevailed for a moment, none of the silence spectaters: the four Aeesu-jin or the small blue gremlin made a sound as they waited for the scenario between the Saiya-jin boy and the Biraju-jin brute to play out.

"Four days." Bojack finally said, "You have four days, but this had better be one hell of a plan."

Gohan would almost have smiled, would have killed for the energy to say, "It is" but he was busy trying to climb to his feet; the task was requiring his every concentration.

He felt a cold, Aeesu-jin hand under his elbow, assisting him. Looking up through lashes clumped with blood, he was surprised to find Forester helping him stand. Whispering, the Aeesu-jin boy said, "Who died and made _him_ leader, anyway?"

Gohan almost laughed, but stopped. He knew from past expiriance that laughing desperatly hurt a damaged body. Later. He would laugh again, but later. Things were too pressing right now, anyway.

Gohan had the odd feeling his time conscious was limited. Unable to hurry, he leaned heavily on Forester as the two boys entered the capsule house, the door closing behind them.

"So what's your plan? What did you find out?" the Aeesu-jin boy asked as he led Gohan across the room and sat him on the couch.

The other boy only shook his head, then whispered, "In the bathroom, under the sink."

"Hm?" Forester leaned closer, "What do you want?"

"First-aid kit.....little white box with a red cross on it.....can you..?"

Forester went in search of it, found the bathroom, and dug through the clutter under the sink. Moving a bottle of tile cleaner and a jug of bubble bath, he found the very box Gohan had described nestled between a bar of soap, a box of tissues, and a plunger. Retrieving the box, he returned to the living room to find the Saiya-jin boy had removed his boots and rolled up his left pant leg.

"Is this what you.....," When Forester saw the gaping wound gourged through the other's leg, he froze. It was worse than deep; it went clear through one side and out the other, the enterance wound gouged into his outer side of his calf, the exit wound on the inside.

The entire leg had darkened to a swollen blue and purple, some areas sickly yellow, others blue-black. The skin around the wound, however, was white as snow. Worse, both sides of the wound were packed with dirt, ground deep into it.

Gohan probed the gash tenderly, prodded the calf, pushed at the wound until a yellow-white stream of puss seeped from it, followed by a second race of blood. The boy groaned, and looked up at Forester, his face deathly pale, his eyes wide with horror. His tail was wound tightly around his thigh, the fur along it standing on edge. "It's infected....I need water....clean it..."

Setting the first-aid box down, Forester didn't say a word. He crossed the room and lifted Gohan up, one hand under his back, the other behind his knees, carrying him like a child to the kitchen and set him on the counter by the sink. It was akward going; Gohan was a good half-foot taller than him. 

"Thanks," the Saiya-jin boy tried to say, but was unable to speak. His lips made the movements, but not a sound escaped him.

The Aeesu-jin boy saw the mouth movement, "Don't mention it."

Carefully, Gohan lowered his injured leg into the large kitchen sink and, saying a silent prayer that he would be able to keep from screaming, he turned the tap on. Cold water gushed forth, immidiatly begining to sweep deep red and brown streaks from skin, dribbling from his shin to his heel, washing into the white porceline sink in murky clouds. He adjusted the tap to flow directly onto his wound, turning the pressure of the water up all the way up.

A thin wail of pain rose up in the back of his throat, against his will, as the water pushed into the enterance wound with enough force that it went clear through and gushed out the exit wound, ribboned with blood. There was a patter of little _clink_ing sounds as the pebbles that had been forced into the wound were washed out into the sink. He clawed at the countertop. His tail writhed and twisted. "Aahn..nn.....AAAH!" 

He held his leg there until the water flowed freely out the exiting end of the wound. He was loath to do what he intended, but neccesity called. He slid a tattered arm bands from his wrist, rolled it, and put it between his teeth, biting down hard.

He rested his hand on his calf as he gathered courage, Forester watching him closely. Then, he slid one finger into the wound, fishing it around, feeling all the bits of rock and sand and sediment that had remained inside him begin to wash away with the water flow. More pebbles _clink_ed and _chink_ed into the sink; Gohan ground his teeth into the tough material between them, shredding it with his razor-sharp canines. His eyes watered with pain, his hands trembled.

The water was completely red as it began to fill the sink, the water pressure too hard to drain fast enough. When he could feel no more grisle, no more bits of sand or sediment, no more pebbles or stones, he gratefully removed his hand from his wound, yet another rush of crimson erupting into the sink.

His head began to spin; how much blood could he loose before there was none left? He turned the tap off. Pulling the shredded armband from his mouth, he said, "The first-aid kit." 

His voice cracked, but Forester understood. His Aeesu-jin face was totally white, and had lost yet more color as he watched Gohan clean out the horrible wound. He nodded his head, his eyes glued to the now clean gash as it weeped remaining water, mingled with a less drastic flow of red. He departed, then hurried back with the white box.

Gohan nodded, unable to thank him verbally. His throat was completely shot. When had he last had something to drink? He was begining to realize he hadn't swallowed anything besides his own blood for the past two or three days. Not a drop of water. Not a crumb of food. He was literally surviving off his own blood. Was this some odd type of self-cannibalism? It really was a discusting concept, especially since he...... He could _not_ think like that. Not now. Not in his condition. Not ever.

He opened the box and pulled out the mini-bottle of hydrogen peroxide. Carefully, turning his leg to the side, he tilted the bottle over the wound. It didn't hurt when the peroxide swirled through his leg and out the other side anymore than the water did, though it felt extremely odd when it began to bubble _inside_ of his leg, against his inward muscles.

"Is...I mean.....shit," Forester wasn't exactly sure what he was asking. Seeing the wound rendered him inarticulate.

"It missed the bone," Gohan said as he lifted his leg from the sink. He turned on the tap once again, cupped his hands under the water and brought it to his mouth in greedy gulps. Again. Then again. Suddenly near insane for more, he swung his head under the tap and drank deeply. Water was sweet.

Out of breath, he pulled himself away from the sink with a sigh. His head spun a second time, and for an instant, he couldn't see anything through the shadows lurking in his pereferal vision. Fighting to keep from blacking out, he gently slid from the counter, making sure to only land on his right leg. 

Sitting down on the floor, he held the first-aid kit on his lap. Opening it, he riffled through in search of, "Surgical thread."

"What are you going to do?" Forester asked, hunching down next to the other boy, being sure to give him ample space; as though being too close would make the leg hurt worse.

Gohan found a curved needle that resembled a fishing-hook minus the barbs, threaded it with the blue surgical thread, "The muscles in my leg won't heal properly like this....I'm going to try sewing it up."

Forester's forehead wrinkled, "Do you know how? Have you ever done it before?"

"I've watched my mother do it....But this is_ my_ first time trying. None of my cuts were ever this bad, either, but I don't see any other choice. If I don't try, I could be crippled." _A senzu or Nameksei-jin healing could really help right now_.......

How to start? This would take inside stitches as well as out; the surgical thread within would dissolve after a few weeks time.... He knew what needed to be done, had listened to his mother when she explained how, where and when to start stitching, the wound was clean as it was going to get, he had all his instuments ready. He just couldn't get himself to start.

His hands were trembling.

His leg possessed a surprisingly new pain. Or perhaps it was the collaboration of all the other pains he had felt before. The wound burned, and it throbbed, and it stung, and it bled, and it felt as though his nerve-endings were being torn out one by one with a pair of needle-nose pliers. Each time a breath of air passed through one side of his leg and out the other, it felt like a wave of citrus juice had washed in with it. 

No anesthetics. No pain killers. No novacane. Not a sliver of asperin. There was absolutely nothing that could take his pain away. No reasurring words from his father, no Nameksei-jin hand ruffling his hair, no Kuririn to put a tentative hand on his shoulder. No mother to fuss over him and--do doubt--rush him to the hospital. He had to deal with this alone. That was the most painful part about it. 

Alone. Hands shaking. Alone. Going to cry? Alone. Overwhelmed by an enemy that could not be killed with anything but time--pain. Alone. He pulled his other armband off; rolled it and put it between his teeth like the first. Alone. Clamped down on it. 

As precise as he could, his worked his left hand's thumb and fore-finger into the wound, opening it as far as possible. Alone. Taking care of himself. Alone. He couldn't see very well. Alone. In his right hand the needle and thread. Alone. Going by feel. 

He pulled the curved needle through the innermost part of the wound, his fingers surrounded with warm, wet, irritated muscle. He hadn't thought it could hurt anymore than it already did. He was wrong. His eyes stung. His teeth reduced the raggedy armband to ribbons and were no doubt grinding themselves to powder. 

The second stitch. Agonizing irritation on top of agonizing irritation. A third stitch. His eyes watered. His jaw ached. His arm mucles spazmed. A fourth, fifth, sixth stitch. Unbeknownst, tears of pain escaped. Free-radicals prancing down his pale, dirt smudged face. First layer done. He bit the thread to cut it. More layers of stitching were going to be needed.

A second layer. More tears. More streaks of moisture running paths through the grung on his face. Couldn't see. Going by feel. Alone. Fingers shaking. The second layer done. There were little blobs of skin on the thread, torn from him. Couldn't see. Going by feel. Alone. 

Third layer.......

It took seven layers. Seventy three stitches. He had counted. The first four layers he had done with his leg at one angle. Fourty two stitches. He then had to turn his leg over to stitch up the other side. Last three layers from there; thirty one stitches. Forester sat closer than before; a surprisingly comforting presence. Not entirely alone. Still couldn't see. His head spun. Going by feel. 

He poured another stream of hydrogen peroxide over it, felt it bubble inside of him. Neosporin to keep it from further infection. A large bandaid on both sides of the wound. Then a layer of white guaze. Not too tight. Not too loose. He returned his tools to their box, and, using the kitchen counter as support, slowly stood.

He lifted one leg, stepped. Then another step. His hands tightly clentched the counter, but he was walking, by jov, and it hurt far less than it had in days. He was making his way toward the refrigerator, a solitary next step on his mind. Food. He needed to eat. Would die if he didn't. 

Forester followed at his elbow, "Do you need any help?"

Gohan shook his head, kept walking, following the counter as it rounded the room. He was going to eat. The thought suddenly flooded his mouth with saliva in anticipation. He! Was! Going! To! Eat! The instant he was apon the ice box it was open. Collecting four or five--his hunger diminished his counting habits--bins of stolen Tahch-jin food, he sat on the floor, tearing one open and stuffing its contents into his mouth with his grubby hands before he even looked to see what it was. 

He swallowed too fast to taste it. Forester was astonished by the speed of the ingestion.

The second container flew open and he thought he caught a glimps of leafy vegetables and rich cheese before this, too, was gone. Delicious. A third container, wraps of bread that resembled tortillas, stuffed with what he was pretty sure were mushrooms. Juicy. Satisfying. Gone. The fourth--there _were_ five!--contained a multitude of little cakes, topped with tart fruit and bits of sugary sprinkles. Sweet. Moist. Gone. 

The edges of hunger were dulling, less blade like, consistantly irritating. He was going to make it go away completely. Hunger would trouble him no more. The fifth container was opened, containing large aquatic-type creatures. Fish. They would taste better heated, but Gohan was unable to wait. He ate them, skin, bones and all. They were tender morsels, melted in his mouth, slightly chewy, salty; his tastebuds quivered. He needed more meat. It had most substance. Protein. Meat.

He reopened the fridge, pulled out two more containers, delighted when he found the first opened held little diced chunks of clam. Slightly tough, but soft, and they slid down his throat nicely. Buttery. A pleasant aftertaste. Gohan couldn't get enough. The final container--slight self-restraint told him not to eat all the food there was--held a root sort of food, darker colored than a potatoe, larger, too. But after the first bite into their almost milky-smooth tastation, they were joining the rest of their foodly-comrades in the bowels of the boy's stomach.

Contented. Not full, but contented. Though he still wanted to eat more--to empty the entire refrigerator of its every-last-morsel-- he knew he had four more days of healing to do, and four days of healing would require daily nurishment. Such a requirement would be difficult to fill if all the food were gone.

"That was.....wow." Forester said, surveying the emptied bins, "It just went right _in_! All of it. Wow. Shit."

Gohan's head bobbed on his shoulders. He had taken care of the most important wound. He had gotten water. He had eaten. One more thing was needed to start his extensive recovery.

He needed sleep with a wild and blinding passion.

"Forester?" He said, slowly rising to his feet.

"Yo?" The Aeesu-jin boy tried to aid him, but Gohan pretended not to see the offered hand.

The Saiya-jin boy steadied himself, hands on his knees, "I need sleep. Could you give me a little time alone?" It sounded rude to him, but talking was becoming more and more of a chore; his lips weren't cooperating, his tounge was heavy. 

"You need help getting to bed?" Forester asked, hesitated, fidgited, his forehead creased. He was torn between staying to keep an eye on his friend, and catering to his friend's wishes.

"I'm through with the hard part," Gohan said with a smile, one sleepy eyelid closing against his will in an odd wink, "Thank you so much for helping me."

Forester shrugged uncomfortably and looked toward the door. "Well." He said, taking one step back, "Okay." His arms swinging at his sides, he said, "If you need anything....I'll be right outside, ya know? Just, I mean, you need anything...."

"I'll be okay, now," Gohan said, smiling, adding again, "Thank you."

"Yeah, well....bye," the Aeesu-jin youth said, looking distraught. After attempting a half-assed wave, he walked backwards towards the door, hesitated in the thresh-hold, then exited the house.

Gohan remained smiling as he watched the concerned retreat, and remained standing until the door closed behing Forester. Then he collapsed onto his kitchen floor, already asleep before he hit the ground.

**To be continued........**


	25. CM25

Contradicting Mission

I hope you'll forgive for the delay. School is being an absolue whore these last days, but fret not! In just three jolly days, I'll be free of her forever-er-for the summer! I'll be snappier then, no doubt.

**------------------------------------------**

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 25**

The instant Gohan opened his eyes, he felt absolutely amazing.

The sun shone down through the window of his kitchen, the linolium floor beneath him was almost soft. It was quiet. He was in his own home. He was safe. 

He sighed with absolute contentment, releasing the tension that had built up within him from a night of bad dreams. 

He stood slowly; a cheerful waking doesn't mean his injuries had miraculously healed over. But he felt better. Optomistic, even. He almost went outside to find Sunow--he had questions he needed answered about the planet Aeesu--but decided against it. He was happy, but in no mood to see anyone.

Looking around, he was upset to find his kitchen messy--he hadn't cleaned up the mess he made shuffling through the first-aid kit yesterday, or cleaned the mess he had made eating. Crumbs, dried globs of food, there were a few dishes uncleaned by the sink. He hadn't cleaned the pan he used to cook eggs with days ago. 

It wasn't really much of a mess, but it bugged him. His mother would throw a holy fit if she knew how untidy he was being. She had made him promise, before she let Bulma give him this house, that he would keep it neat and clean at all times.

Muddy foot prints--he could tell that while he was gone his house had been open to anyone that wished to enter--various sized, three-toed foot prints prooved that the Aeesu-jin had been coming and going, smaller foot prints of Garlic, and, only on rare here-or-there basis, were the large marks of Bojack. 

It was rather irritating, but Gohan didn't let it bring him down. It felt nice being up again.

There was a pretty bad smell wafting off of him; sweat, blood, fear; that was greatly interrupting his peace of mind. He would clean himself up good, he decided, then clean the kitchen. Hell, he would clean the whole house. He smiled to himself as he made his way to his bathroom, realizing how crazy it was that he was looking forward to doing chores. 

He turned the water on in the tub, and slowly began to undress.

It wasn't that he was a particularly messy boy. He always kept his room tidy and his bed made, did his dishes when he was through eating, and tried to take a bath once a day. But those weren't really chores. The plans he had for the house were going to involve hands-and-knees scrubbing, sudsy surface cleaners and strong smelling solvents. He was anticipating it.

Once the tub was full, he slid himself into the warm water, mindfully keeping his bum leg out of the water--he wasn't supposed to get his stitches wet. He scrubbed at his skin thoroughly, picking at clumps of dried mud and working at red stains with lathered soap until there was more grunge in the water than on himself. He drained the tub, then refilled it and repeated the process; scrubbing behind his ears and under his arms, soaping up his head--first time he washed his hair since arriving on this kami forsaken planet!!-- and working away every little speck of crud he could find on himself until his skin positively glowed and squeeked when he ran his hand over it.

Using a damp washcloth, he carefully cleaned off his left leg. He drained the tub and refilled it once more to rinse off, washing away all the bubbles left over, splashing water into his face and rubbing it down his neck and shoulders, then leaning back to soak for a while. In his own home. With lavender-smelling soap. And no one else around.

If his leg wasn't such a wreck, it would have been virtual paradise.

He climbed out of the water when it began to get cold, wrapping a fluffy towel around his shoulders, and, barefoot, he padded across the bathroom to the crumpled, stained, foul-smelling pile that was his gi. It wasn't orange anymore. It was mostly brown and black; mud and blood; and shredded in too many places to count. Crouching, he picked it up and inspected it carefully, but with a sinking feeling.

Perhaps his mother, with all her expertise and years of expiriance, could have been able to mend it. But Son Gohan knew, beyond a doubt, that there was no way he would be able to fully repair it. He couldn't even find a place to begin, for its material was worn thin from abuse, burnt from chi and that cursed Chah't ceptre, and shredded from his untidy decent down the mountain. He was afraid to even wash it, for fear it would dissolve altogether and clog up the filter in his washing machine.

He carried it into his bedroom, crumpled it into a wadded ball, and threw it into the back of his closet. He would just have to deal with it later. 

He pulled on his white study shirt and black slacks and, still rubbing at his wet hair with a towel, returned to his kitchen where he began systematically picking up and putting away all articles on the floor. Then he cleaned off the counters with a kitchen rag. Then he swept. Then he mopped. Then he cleaned the sink of any remianing stains of blood or chunks of stone from yesterdays unpleasant business.

It was nearly an hour later when he had completely finished with the kitchen. His leg hurt a good sum, but long ago he learned to ignore this kind of pain; he was too busy being proud of how nice his kitchen looked to care, anyway.

He returned to his room, limping, thinking that perhaps he would lay down on his bed for a few hours; let his leg up and relax. And just heal. His mother never understood how, but even after the roughest days of training with Tousan and Piccolo-san he only needed a good night's sleep to recover for the next day's strains. Each night as he went to bed he pretended he was in one of the healing chambers Vegita-san had shown him on Namek. He pretended he could feel himself healing, his cuts closing, his swelling receding, and, sure enough, by the next morning nearly all the damage was gone.

It was a silly game, and he knew he wasn't _really_ healing that fast. As he got older, he imagined it less and less. He stopped completely in the Room of Spirit and Time and, truthfully, had forgotten about it until that moment on planet Aeesu as he limped to his room. 

He had the crazy impulse to start pretending again, and he couldn't come up with a single reason not to. 

But when he lay down, his head on his soft pillow that smelled of home, sleep was far from his mind and his eyes wouldn't close. He kept thinking about that dirty gi all crumpled up in his closet. It would start smelling. If his mother knew he had just thrown an article of clothes into the back of his closet, she would be upset with him. How does one get rid of the smell of blood? What if it left a stain on the floor?

It was such a minial chain of worries that it almost made him happy. No worrying about Henning. No worrying about the plan. Just worrying about a dirty gi leaving a smell in the back of his closet.

Nevertheless, he got up from his bed and collected the rotten looking little ball of cloth from his closet, carried it down the hall from his room, and layed it out on his washing machine where it wouldn't disrupt him.

He returned to his room, but found he didn't feel like pretending or sleeping anymore. It had been just some crazy notion. He almost wished he would get more. He kind of liked when his thoughts caught him by surprise.

He stared at his bed, not laying down, unable to take his eyes off a crease in the sheet. It wasn't a big crease. But it held his attention captive. He finally shook his head, straightened out the sheet, and decided that if he wasn't going to sleep, he might as well start cleaning his room.

**------------------------------------------**

Joru Le'Armont cringed against the wall as a stray chair sailed over his head and crashed against the wall. A second article was hurtled against a different wall with a louder crash, where it shattered.

"Brother, that was a priceless vase!" Joru yelled, ducking against the wall as Henning threw another object--a flowery statuette depicting a plump alien female--and it exploded into stoney shards above Joru's head, "Brother, calm down! You're not well! You won't be able to heal if you keep-"

"It's not fair!" Henning yelled, oblivious to his brother's words as he pounded his feet against the ground and beat his fists against the walls, "I _had_ him, dammit, _had_ him in my fucking _palm_!" He held his hand up in example, his trembling fingers clutching at the air as though grasping for something beyond his reach, "How, how, _how_ could he have escaped?!"

Joru trembled to his very soul, _Oh, if only you knew, Brother_......

Henning began coughing and clutched his side, the veins in his temples pulsing out horrifically, and he sank to his knees, punching at the ground, ranting like a maniac, "Son Gohan is _mine_!! _My_ prize!!_ I_ caught him!!"

"I know, brother, I know," Joru said, trying to sound soothing despite the fact he was almost urinating on himself. He put a hand on his brother's back, agreeing with him and saying, "I know, he was yours. All yours," because he couldn't think of anything else to say and he was afraid Henning was going to destroy the entire fortress as well as himself if he didn't calm down, "All your-"

"But you can't possibly understand!" Henning cried, spinning around and grabbing Joru by his shirt collar. He dropped his voice suddenly to a wild whisper, "I had my hand against his face....like this...," and he pressed his cold Tahch-jin palm against his brother's face, "And I felt his beautiful little thoughts....."

Joru pulled away from his brother, "I know, I know!" he insisted, "I know, I know!" He retreated backwards, fumbling his hands behind him to avoid stumbling over anything.

Henning stalked after his brother, his arms wide as though about to tackle him and wrestle him to the ground, "I want him back! Oh, I _need_ that precious boy _back_!!" And Joru continued to say, "I know, I know!" until Henning suddenly dover after him, his hands outstretched to grab hold of Joru's shoulders.

The smaller Tahch-jin retreated further, running almost backwards, looking over his shoulder to keep from tripping over the rubble of some smashed artifact. Henning pursued him, keeping one hand pressed against his ribcage where not long ago Son Gohan had struck him, and his other hand reaching forward, trying to catch hold of his brother.

Suddenly, he went into a flying leap, just missed the back of Joru's robe, and went tumbling to the floor, hunching over his aching side. Joru watched him with a mixture of pity and horror.

"You'll find another...boy...and maybe he'll be even better," Joru attempted comfort, but was unable to hide the revultion he felt. He remembered the way young Gohan had looked after spending less than an _hour_ with Henning. It was such a sight, burned forever into Joru's mind, that he almost wanted to _kill_ his brother to insure it would never happen again.

Henning shook his head, "I don't want another one." His head slowly rose, "I'll get him back!"

"Oh, brother, just let him-"

"No, I'm thinking clearly now. I have it!" He turned his head to look at his brother, and truely his eyes gleamed once more with his cold Tahch-jin genius, "Gather your forces, brother dear, we're going Saiya-jin hunting!"

"What!?" Joru said, "When!?"

Henning began calculating, "A day to get the men prepared....perhaps two to collect all the supplies we would need....and to chart off the planet.... Brother, how many sentry do you have now?"

Head spinning, Joru approximated, "Well....about three hundred on the planet. You know I don't really like having too many-"

"Collect them all. Tell them we're going treking across the Aeesu-jin planet."

"When?"

"Three days."

**------------------------------------------**

It was when cleaning under his bed that he found the box. It was a large box, cardboard. At first, he didn't even recognize it. It took a moment's time to get it out from under the bed--it had been slid way back against the wall, as though hidden, and when he got it out into the light were he could see it, he found it was covered in dust.

It looked pretty old, as though it had been stashed away in the far corner under his bed for years. Very curious.

He brushed the layer of dust off the lid, and found that something was written on it in black permanant marker--he recognized it as his own handwriting, though it was a bit less coordinated. It was his handwriting from years ago, when he was still very young.

On the lid, it read "_In case of Emergency_".

It was very odd. Why would something like this be hidden in his capsule house? Perhaps he put it here years ago and forgot about it? He was almost hesitant to open it, as though it was some ancient artifact that shouldn't be disturbed, or someone else's property. He ran his hand over the rest of the box, ridding it of the soft layer of dust, sneezing.

Finally, carefully, he pulled up the tape securing the box shut, and the instant he open it, he remembered.

For inside, was his _old_ Saiya-jin armor; the one he had worn on Namek eight years ago. When he had been only five years old.

He remembered, now, why it had been hidden.

His mother had wanted to get rid of it. On every turn, she would nag him about it, telling him he didn't need it because he wasn't going to fight anymore and it was ugly and the kind of clothes the enemy wore--at that time she was _very_ against all Saiya-jins--and it represented evil, and other tripe that she layed on so thick it irritated Gohan.

He was usually a good boy, and tried to do everything his mother told him to, but for some utterly unknown reason, he had been unable to throw it away. 

So he did something he normally couldn't do.

He lied.

He told her he had thrown it away. She was proud of him, smiled, hugged him and called him her good little boy. He felt rotten. But he kept the suit; hidden in his closet or under his bed, always moving it to make sure his mother wouldn't find it.

When Bulma-san gave him his capsule house, he finally had a secure hiding place. He stashed it under his new bed, where he completely forgot about it. Until now.

Carefully, as though expecting it to break, he pulled out the white body armor, inspecting it carefully, remembering this was the first Saiya-jin armor he had ever looked at closely, and he recalled how it had perplexed him so. He stretched it expirimentally, finding it was just as pliable as it had been so many years ago. 

Bulma-san's version of the armor deteriorated after a year or so; near the end of his stay in the Room of Spirit and Time, his armor was so far gone that it cracked and chipped at every impact. She was still far from discovering the recipe required to make a suit as advanced as this.

Perhaps she never would.

He layed the armor aside and pulled out the snowy white gloves, and boots--checking each over for any signs of aging, finding none--and finally the dark blue undersuit.

It wasn't until after he pulled the undersuit out that the idea occured to him.

Perhaps he could still fit into it.

His gi was wasted, unrepairable, and filthy. He wouldn't be able to fight in his study clothes--the material was far too flimsy. Why not wear the Saiya-jin armor to battle? It brought him luck against an Aeesu-jin eight years ago, and considered what was ahead, he would need it. 

It looked extremely small, though. Would it stretch to fit him? Perhaps. There was always one way to find out.

On another swing of impulse, he didn't bother finishing cleaning his room. He stripped off his slacks and shirt, mindful of his bum leg, and grabbed up his dark blue body suit. He had almost forgotten how to put it on, to tell the truth, and it took supreme time and care to pull it over his abrasive, scabby skin, and he nearly cried out when he accidentally raked his fingers across the jagged stitching on his calf while straightening out the leg of his body suit.

Amazingly, it fit as well as it had eight years ago, snug, but not uncomfortable. The ends of the sleeves ended, perhaps, a few inches higher on his wrists and a tad too high on his ankles, but once on it gave him the same peculiar feeling of power that Bulma's version seemed to lack. 

He hefted his body armor next, tossed it back and forth from one hand to the other, still surprised at how it weighed nothing more than air itself. It looked rather small. His torso and shoulders had broadened considerably in the past eight years--and would no doubt continue to grow larger--and the suit, ment for a child's physique, simply did not look equal to his proportions.

Nevertheless, he wiggled and squirmed into it out of curiosity. And immediatly regretted it. 

Perhaps if he had been in better health, it wouldn't have bothered him so much, but the instant it was on, it seemed to shrink around his ribcage, hindering his breathing. Though whatever damage his ribs themselves had sustained had knitted, they were still tender as hell. The pressure of the small armor was extremely unpleasant and felt as though it was crushing him slowly and surely. Besides that, it squeezed up under his arms, chafing at his pits, and came in uncomfortably tight around his neck.

He quickly took it off, coughing for moment as he regained his breath. The undersuit fit fine. The body armor did not.

The boots, he found, were too small for his feet, and crumpled up his toes so bad he couldn't walk properly in them. They, just like the armor, were no good. The gloves were about as useful. Apon trying to pull them onto his hands, he found that though his hand fit well enough, his fingers had gotten quite a bit longer--there just wasn't enough glove for his hands. Useless as well.

In the end, only the bodysuit fit him comfortably. Struggling to keep his optimistic attitude, he decided that the undersuit was more than what he had before finding the box. It would work. The material, he knew, was extremely tough, perhaps even tougher than his gi. Though it wouldn't protect him as the armor would have, it would serve its purpose well enough. 

In any event, he wouldn't have to fight in his house clothes. Quite actually, the suit was far more comfortable _than_ his house clothes. And the cloth didn't swish when he walked like his either his gi _or_ his house clothes did. That sound always bugged him and his accursed Saiya-jin hearing. 

What about shoes? Though he could always fight barefoot, it was a smart idea to protect as much as possible; damaged feet make for hard fighting.

He went searching through the house, looking for his original boots, and found them in his living room where he had removed them yesterday. They were made of a tougher material than his gi had been, and in fact, they didn't seem damaged at all. Just really, really dirty. And smelly. And bloody. 

He picked them up, one boot in each hand, and walked down his hall, holding them at as far a distance from himself as he could. He threw them in his washing machine--his mother would be whopping mad if she found out he was washing his shoes in the clothes washer--added extra soap, and turned the machine on. He could always get a new washing machine. He didn't have another pair of shoes. This was an emergency.

While he waited for the wash to get done, he returned to his room and finished cleaning it, going so far as to find the glass cleaner in the bathroom and scrubbing off his windows and mirror.

When his shoes were done, he hobbled down the hall, collected them, returned to his room, pulled them on, and stood before his freshly-washed mirror to see how he looked. It was strange, but he found it oddly appropriate that he was wearing Saiya-jin clothes, and his father's style of shoes. 

Whatever fashion statement it made, it gave him a good sum of confidence. He nodded at himself once in the mirror, then glanced at his bed, wondering if he should perhaps take his nap now. Once again, however, his body stubbornly insisted he was not tired. He was thinking of the plan. Of how to take down the Tahch-jin.

He needed to talk to Sunow. He would actually prefer to talk to the doctor, but that wasn't an option at the moment. Either way, he needed information on planet Aeesu-sei if his scheme was really going to work. And he was going to need it soon.

He went to his kitchen where he paced a few moment, his limp getting worse with each turn, and finally collected a bin of food from his fridge, and sat down. He slowly enjoyed his meal, carefully savoring each morsel and ignoring the outside world completely until the container was empty and he was certain hunger wasn't going to suddenly raise its mighty voice.

Then he walked outside in search of Sunow.

**To be continued......**


	26. CM26

CM 26

I've heard many comments on how odd it must look for Gohan to wear the Saiya-jin undersuit and his father's boots. Well, as it turns out, I'd illustrated it on my webpage. You can see it [**Here**][1].

Okay, there were a goodly sum of reviews and emails pertaining to why the Saiya-jin armor didn't fit Gohan, even though it could stretch to crazy proportions for the Oozarus and such. And I probably would have thought so, too. However, Saiya-jin armor isn't a one-size-fits-all type of deal.

On Namek (though the dub forgot to mention this) Vegita was rather irritated when, after raiding Freeza's ship in search of new armor after his was royaly trashed by the Ginyu Force, he was unable to find the newest model of armor "in his size." For some reason the dub made him say that the model he got stuck with was a "newer model" which directly contradicts what he said in the manga (no longer available) at Planet Namek. However, later he was able to produce the "newer model" in Gohan and Kuririn's size.

Why couldn't he fit into _their_ size?

My guess is that the proportions were wrong. With smaller bodies, they had shorter, more compact torsos and thinner shoulders. Yeah, he probably could have weasled into one, but it would have been irritating and awkward, too tight under the arms and riding too high on the stomach. The same would go for Gohan; who, at thirteen, wouldn't be the same size as he had been with he was five. Perhaps he could have tolerated it in good health, but keep in mind his whole body is barely holding itself together, and any slight unpleasantness could be downright painful.

**-------------------------------------------**

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 26**

It surprised Sunow how, in the coarse of one night, Son Gohan could alter his appearance so greatly.

Yesterday, the boy looked as though he had been shredded to ribbons and had one-and-a-half feet in the grave. He had been filthy, bloody, broken and unrespondant. He had walked as though he didn't have the energy to keep his head up--which he probably didn't--and his voice had been paper-thin and crackled like an autumn leaf.

But today was different; Sunow could see so the instant Son Gohan emerged into the sunlight from within his capsule house.

Though he limped pretty heavily, he looked fresh and healthy; his skin, milky and clean, positively glowed with life, his head was held high, his shoulders were swept back, and his tail trailed behind him, curving gently down behind him while the furry tip pointed skyward. 

The boy's dress, for the second time, caught Sunow by surprise--the first surprise he had was seeing Gohan in his house clothes--for, just as his house clothes had made him appear somehow less dangerious and more studious, the body suit, obviously ment for combat situations, made him look far more like a warrior. The dark material hugged tightly into every muscle and curve, expressing the very power his loose house clothes hid. A change in wardrobe was all it took to alter one's first take; at least it was so with Son Gohan.

Sunow found himself rising to greet the boy--the thought suddenly struck him funny; an Aeesu-jin rising to greet a mere alien boy--and said quite happily, "Son Gohan! You look much better this morning."

The boy smiled genuinely, "I_ feel_ much better this morning." To emphasize, he stretched his arms over his head and arched his back, all the hairs on his tail standing on end as he pushed up onto his toes in a mighty stretch.

Sunow smiled, "I was noticing your new choice of dress, I didn't think you had any other sets of clothes except the two I'd already seen."

Gohan looked down at his body suit, "I didn't think I had any, either. I found this under my bed." He looked like he was about to add something, but then closed his lips. His eyes scanned the horizon.

"What is it?" Sunow asked, looking around, too, "Danger?"

Gohan shook his head, the cheerfulness he had been radiating seemed to wilt and dim, "Nothing."

From the sky dropped Bojack, startling the Aeesu-jin. The Biraju-jin glanced the boy up and down, taking in his new attire and healthy appearance, locking eyes for a moment, then smiled his twisted blue lips. 

He held up four blue fingers of one hand, then slowly lowered a finger. It didn't need any words. Gohan got the message: _You had four days. Now you have three. Tick tock, tick tock._

Gohan broke eyecontact first, too late to salvage entirely his previously happy additude. His tail wrapped itself tightly around his thigh.

He got a sudden chill--what if Bojack-tachi didn't want to go along with his plan? What if his guesses were off, and it wouldn't work? Bojack wanted a plan, wanted to take down and out all the Tahch-jin, wanted to win, and wanted Gohan to tell him _how_ in three days. What if..... 

There was so much hanging on him that is was frightening; and now that he was more rational, and wasn't half insane from pain and fatigue and loss of blood, he wasn't so sure the plan was as fool proof as he had dilusioned.

_Tick tock. Tick tock._

He needed information, and he could only hope Sunow had it. 

As he frowned, he was aware of the tightening of skin on his cheek. The gash he had recieved from his first fight on planet Aeesu had hardened into a spectacular scar. The sight of it had begun to really bother him; every time he passed the mirror in his room while he was cleaning, he noticed it, a line of almost purple-brown that ran two inches down his face. When he glided his fingers over the scar tissue, he couldn't feel the contact. He should have noticed how deep it was when he first recieved it by the amount of bleeding it caused, but had been too busy before.

He began to think about how odd he must look; what would Piccolo-san think of him, now? Wearing a Saiya-jin body suit, his long furry tail, and the scar on his face..... He looked like no scholar, that was for sure. But he certainly didn't feel like he thought a Saiya-jin or any other warrior would feel. He was just some unfortunate boy who wasn't what he wanted to be, and looked like something he didn't want to be, all the while he felt simply confused and lost and homesick and _dreadfully_ alone-

"Son Gohan?"

The boy jumped, startled to realize he'd been feeling _sorry_ for himself like a spoiled....

_Tick tock. Tick tock._

"Sunow-san, what do you know about the mechanism that dissallows transformation on this planet?"

Sunow blinked at the question, then said in a hush-hush tone, "More than I probably should. Why?"

Gohan glanced over his shoulder to find that Bojack was watching him. With a shudder, he said, "I have some questions I need to ask you."

------------------------------------------------

One secretarie hadn't reported for work that day. One was in intensive care. Two were dead. Victims of Heng. They had failed to find out what Heng wanted. Heaven was no place for failures. 

The remaining two secretaries, all that was left of the original six, sat in stark terror; their entire attention focused on Heng. They were terrified. All was not well in Heaven. Their computers had been breeched. Their power stollen. Nearly all of their underparties--one of which had been Backlash--had been beheaded, leaving them scattered and disorganized. And time after time Heng found himself being personally humiliated from all sides.

The great Aeesu-jin's lip curled upward, exposing his teeth. The armrests of his wonderful, beautiful chair were crushed from his constant grip; even now his fingers were sunk into the wood. His tail, slung over his armrest, swung dangerously back and forth. If things didn't improve, someone else was going to die. 

All of his men's efforts only gave him three names. Tahch-jin. Henning Le'Armont. Joru Le'Armont.

Nearly fve weeks of research total, since the problems had started and the Aeesu-jin nobility had begun to die. And they only _now_ had the names of the culprits. Heng slightly regretted it, but he had killed the secretary who came up with the names, for the very reason that it took him so long. But it didn't matter. Heng was making a list, and that list was slowly growing.

Bojack had to die.

Son Gohan had to die.

Off-planet Aeesu-jin Freeza had to die.

Doctor Koda had to die.

Joru Le'Armont had to die.

Henning Le'Armont had to die.

And, as time progressed, the list began to become detailed and specific: Bojack, Son Gohan, and Henning had to die slowly, painfully and humiliatingly. The very thought of their names made Heng's blood boil.

In the center of the room, Heaven, stood an Aeesu-jin; kneeling before the throne. Not too young. Not too old. Perhaps a hundred and fifty years old. Perhaps two hundred. Perhaps three hundred. By this stage in life, Aeesu-jin seemed to become ageless, and wouldn't grow or change physically for a goodly number of generations. Their horns would perhaps begin to curve. Their limbs bulk up with earned muscle. But no real change would begin again until they neared six or seven hundred of age.

But his particular Aeesu-jin was important to Heng, if the news he claimed to have was even half-true.

"You say that you've worked for an alien named Joru Le'Armont for the past four weeks?" Tzukalt, a dim yellow Aeesu-jin and the largest of Heng's secrataries began speaking, breaking Heng out of his violent thoughts.

"Um," the Aeesu-jin said, "Uh, sir. Yes. I mean, yessir. Yes. Sir." Overbearingly nervous, he seemed to have the habit of sucking his teeth loudly. His tail, notably longer than usual, had a particularly submissive curl, trailing down behind him so dramatically that it hugged the back of his legs, the last two feet flat against the ground, unmoving. 

"What is your name?" Tzukalt continued his questions, feeling slightly rediculous with his number dwindled down to two. He rubbed the back of his neck casually, not bothering attempting to intimidate this already fearful, brow-beaten, over-used little pawn of an Aeesu-jin.

"Ah....Oh, well, sir, my name is, ah, Chiling....sir." Accompanying this broken statement, he ran his tongue along the front of his teeth visibly, then poked around the inside of his cheek. He seemed to have something stuck between two molars. "I'm an, ah, second class citizen..."

After exchanging an overdramatacized look with a fellow secretary, Tzukalt leaned forward and said, "Tell us everything you know about the Tahch-jin."

-------------------------------------------------

With a final nod of thanks, Gohan departed from Sunow's company; his mind would have been more put to ease if Bojack would stop staring at him, watching his every move. It was unnerving. 

The Plan, the Plan. The facts were there and workable. It was possible. He hoped that the light at the end of this tunnel wasn't as false as the others had been; maybe, just maybe, this was the one he was waiting for. The finale.

He was getting tired again; his body was sucking up whatever power he was slowly regaining and applying it to his injuries; mending torn flesh and knitting broken bone took considerable energy. But now he couldn't sleep, for he had many things to do in the remaining three days, and the sound _tick tock, tick tock_ was forever on his mind, and even when he was safely inside his house again he could swear he felt the Biraju-jin watching his every move.

What he had to do now was find his tool box and take some things apart.

The capsule house wasn't very large, but as Gohan began searching for his tools he decided it had _far_ too many cabinets and drawers and closets and cupboards and hide-aways and corners where things could easily get lost and never be found again. It took almost two hours of searching before he finally found the red tin box in his upstairs attic storage locker. 

How it got there was beyond him; he hadn't been up _there_ in years. The dust was so thick it almost reached his ankles, and with his particlar distaste for dust, he normally avoided going up there. Clamboring up and down the narrow staircase to _get_ to the attic was quite difficult on his poor leg. But he needed those tools. It was important.

He placed the tin tool box on the floor of his livingroom and started carefully walking through the house, inspecting each piece of electronic equipment he came across, making estimates on the size of the gears, wires, batteries, sprockets, screws and bolts, placing the objects he found most suitable in his livingroom by his tool box. His television, his VCR, his alarm clock, his portable laptop, his phone and, most important of all, two walkmans, which he used to listen to his studies while he slept more than to actual music.

He sat crosslegged on the floor in front of the pile of devices, his tool box open in his lap; in one hand he held a screwdriver, in the other he held a pair of needle-nosed pliers. 

He had a lot of work ahead of him.

As he went through the pile, opening up each impliment with his screwdriver, he found that no pieces were the size he wanted. Too small or too large, too heavy for the delicate machinery he intended or too delicate to work with; he was frustrated from the begining, constantly reminding himself that beggers couldn't be choosers and he had to work with what he had.

Still, he managed to work for a good three hours, his eyes growing heavier and heavier as he struggled to keep awake and alert enough to continue this precise line of work. In the end, he had the pieces he needed, figured out how to make them fit together enough to (hopefully, kami willing) work. He got a scarf from a drawer in his room and placed the pieces he had chosen onto it. Making sure none of them rolled off, he folded the scarf and the pieces into tight square and put it in a drawer. 

He couldn't risk losing a single sprocket.

He went to his bathroom and splashed cold water onto his face and stared at himself in the mirror with irritation. Eyed the scar on his cheek. Examined his nose, which had a slight disalignment; it had been broken again somewhere back there. His hair was being peculiar; sticking up in wild spikes, even more than usual and his attempts to brush it into submission caused it to perk up. Wetting it down did no greater a job. It just wasn't going to obey.

He sighed and began to undress, pulled his boots off and slithered out of his bodysuit with special care not to agitate his shredded leg. He then unwrapped his calf to find that the skin around the stitching was red and swollen. Infected. Painful. He applied another splash of hydrogen peroxide, then chased it down with rubbing alcohol--with gritted teeth--and re-wrapped it with new gauze. He ran a washcloth over his face, behind his ears, under his arms, and along his shoulders in a quick sponge bath, brushed his teeth then swished his mouth out with water. 

It felt good to finally have the time to remove the sour taste of old blood from his mouth; much less getting the layer of grit off his teeth.

His toilette routine done, he folded up his body suit, slung it over one arm, collected his boots and returned to his room. Fondly, he returned the unusable parts of his old Saiya-jin armor to their box (he had forgotten to earlier), retaped it, and slid it back under his bed.

Wearing only his boxers, his body aching and already begining the healing process, he climbed under his soft, smooth blankets. The matress felt absolutely devine on his worn body, soft and forgiving, it sank and gave under his weary muscles in absolute comfort. It was when he started to relaxe that he realized how stiff he had been. Going limp was a luxory he finally allowed himself to enjoy.

As he waited for sleep to claim him, he thought about the unpleasant visit he had survived to the Underground. Unable to yet mentally confront the meeting with Henning, he went further back: why had he gone down there in the first place? Oh. He wanted to see the good doctor, to make sure he was alive. And then.....

Memories of the riot suddenly flashed before him, unbidden and unstoppable. The Saiya-jin, fighting for their life and freedom, dying, bleeding, their chi flashing brightly then winking out in death. The Aeesu-jin, killing in masses, grinning as their opponents were little more than babes in comparison to their power. And him, Son Gohan. The Master of Death. The Slayer of Aeesu-jin. The Champion of the Saiya-jin. He wanted to vomit.

All the Saiya-jin were dead now. He was sure of it. How many was that, exactly? There must have been thousands. Did they see it coming? Were they happier to have faught and died, than to have gone on living in such miserable conditions? It was so odd, that they had left Vegita-sei with hopes of a better life, escaping the civil war with the _Tsufuru-jin_, only to meet their deaths at the hand of a foreign enemy.

Did the Aeesu-jin see it coming? Hundreds of them surely died in that riot as well. He had seen to that. Did they have regrets? Did they, in their moment of death, wish they had done something different? What did they think of, before they died? Family? Friends? Revenge? Or did they think _'Ah, jeez, I was supposed to return that call to so-and-so' _or _'Crimeny, I was supposed to attend a meeting tomarrow'_ or some other small thing they were supposed to do, but never would, due to their sudden death.

Gohan rolled over under his covers, pulling his pillow over his head. Death. He was alive, but death played a larger roll in his life than living could ever hope for. His leg was throbbing. What if it was so infected it would have to be amputated? It was an unlikely situation--his Saiya-jin genes were too hearty--but it was a better train of thought than the riot, so.... What would life be like without a leg?

_I would never be able to fight again._

From under his pillow, he opened his eyes. 

Where did _that_ thought come from? And why was the thought followed with such underlaying horror? He would have expected his first thoughts to be how it would affect his future of being a scholar. Or of having to get a prostetic leg or sitting in a wheelechair the rest of his life, or how he would go up stairs or if his mother would have to help him in the bathroom or something.

But his first thought had been, _I would never be able to fight again._ His first thought. The very first. It had been about fighting. As he closed his eyes again, he wondered what that ment. Perhaps he liked fighting more than he allowed himself to admit? _No, don't follow that thought through. You'll start thinking about the times you enjoyed fi-_ So what if he never faught again. Cell was dead. And androids were allies--by marriage!--and the Earth, dear Chikyuu-san, was in perpetual peace.

Why think of fighting?

_Because fighting makes me feel so ali-_

He cut the thought short before finishing it. Fighting was what caused war, right? If people didn't fight, then there would be no wars. His mother said that so often it was in his mind from conception. But there was more to that. As much as he didn't want to think of it, he was remembering the fight he had with those six Aeesu-jin, when he had broken into the Tahch-jin fortress for the first time to rescue Freeza and Garlic.

That fight had been incredible. Enjoyable. When, for a single second, his mind, heart, soul, spirit, body, insticts and chi had all become one, quivering eagerly as he faught. He had felt so alive. More alive than he ever had during peace. Was it just some chemical reaction his Saiya-jin breeding reacted to? It was more than genetics. In that moment, he had been enjoying it. It was life, not death, that made him fight. Fighting to live, to sustain life, for life against life in a clash as old as the sky and the stars.

Battle. Life against life. The glory and, yes, sometimes defeat, and, yes, sometimes horror, but also the thrill of dominance and victory. Who knows why people started fighting. And who knows why they liked it so much. 

His mind ill at ease, Gohan fell asleep.

Two days left.

_Tick tock. Tick tock._

***

He stood in a cloud of darkness, the very air and sky, atmosphere, _existance_ around him blacker than oil-slick polished ebony. The blackness hovered over his head and body, sucking the color from him until his skin was white and his clothes were gray, stopping abruptly at his feet, where the dark transformed into a flaming red.

He was standing in blood, sticky. Squishing between his bare toes. Still warm. He tried to move, get out of it, but for a reason he did not know, he couldn't. He was unable to move, even to tremble. Warm, thick, noxious blood. Rising. Climbing up his feet. Up to his ankles. 

He tried again to get out, but the blood held him down like quick sand, and when he finally broke one foot free with a sick _thwuck_ of suction, he lost his balance, and his foot went back down, this time unable to break free. Warm. Odious. Horrendious.Climbing his calf. Rising. Whose blood was it? Its smell was unfamiliar; alien. There was so much; hundreds of people had died to contribute to this horrible spectacle.

Suddenly, from deep within the tide of crimson, now up to his knees, came a hand, white as snow, boney, clawing at his pant-leg. He drew back from it, staggering through the blood as it scaled to his knees. The hand, pursuing him, was joined by a second, white and bloated with decay, it was reaching for him. More hands grasped out of the red sea of horror, dripping with the the very matter they erupted from.

A different hand joined them, now. Not white, but peach, the same color as his own flesh. A single detail depicted what and whose it was. 

The hand, larger than Gohan's, had a blue armband around its wrist.

It was then that he realized whose hands these were. They were the hands of the people he killed; the Aeesu-jin from the riot, from the fights before, and that one hand, that one awefull, vile, horrible hand, was the hand of......

Suddenly, emerging behind the bloody, armbanded hand, came the rest of the body it possessed. The lean, musculare arm. The orange gi. And, finally, a face, haloed in stiff, bristly black hair. Gohan stopped breathing. His heart pounded rapidly. Tousan. It was _Tousan._ Climbing out from the tide of blood, now rising past the boy's hips. 

The face of Son Goku was not the fresh, kind face the boy remembered. Not the warm, reasuring, honest face of a lost loved one. It was grinning evily. Twisted, the skin a sallow yellow, old, bad, like rotting meat. He was still reaching his dead hands toward his son, his perverted face grinning wider as the red tide climbed to Gohan's elbow, then his shoulders. Then it neared his chin.

He choked, desperatly trying to escape, but with nowhere to go. Warm and salty, it rose to his mouth; this was the blood of his victims, trying to get in his mouth, to fill his lungs. He wanted to close his eyes, but stark terror refused him to miss a second of the horror. Under the thick, rolling surface, he felt the cold hands of the dead scratching at his legs, grapping at his ankles and wrists, trying to pull him under.

Suddenly, his dead father reached forward, grasped his son by the shoulders, and forced his head down, down, under the thick, warm, sticky.......

-------------------------------------------------

A long, loud scream erupted from somewhere inside the capsule house, shattering the peacful night.

Sunow gave out an involuntary gasp and jumped from his seat, a sudden surge of adrenaline flooding his system. A second scream exploded, so intense it seemed as though its owner was being eaten alive, torn piece from piece. Sunow looked left, then right, hoping someone else was around. Freeza, having been leaning against the wall of the capsule house, now stood alarmed, looking around for an unknown threat.

Forester and Eesei, previously asleep, were both awake now, sitting up, their eyes wide with fear, looking around in confusion. Eesei clung to her brother's arm as he stood up, lifting her up with him. She kept her tail secured tightly around his shoulders, seeking comfort, and in return he wrapped his tail around her. She was whimpering. He was trembling. Another howl sounded, so tortured, so horrifying that it chilled them both to the bone.

Garlic remained at a distance, his legs and arms crossed. He had seen this brewing from a distance, watching sightlessly the changes and swirls of chi, for the past two hours. When the screaming started, even with his forknowledge, it still set his teeth on edge. His sensitive ears were ringing. Unable to concentrate, he opened his eyes and watched the capsule house with narrow, coal eye.

A fourth drawn-out scream of horror rattled the house, and gurgled back into a foreboding silence. 

Only one person was missing from camp; Bojack, who had left sometime after the rest of the odd party had bedded down.

"What was that?" Sunow asked Freeza, approaching cautiously.

Freeza shook his head in answer, not taking his eyes off the house.

"Papa?" Forester's shaky voice sounded, "What's going on?" A frightened wail came from the little girl, whose face was pressed against his chest.

"I....I don't know," Sunow said, putting a hand on his son's shoulder, and his other hand on his daughter's head. His tail was poised behind him, subconsciously, poised to attack or defend from any threat. It was natural, even to an Aeesu-jin with as little training as Sunow. "Why don't you take your sister down by the beach, hm? Papa will take care of everything."

"I'm not afraid," Forester insisted.

"I know."

"But.... But Eesei is. That's why I'll do it. I'll go. I'm just worried about her."

"I know. Thank you. You're a good son, and a better brother."

The Aeesu-jin boy smiled thinly, nodded, and hurried off into the night, his tail held high behind him like a flag.

Freeza advanced toward the door of the house, glancing over his shoulder to watch the children depart, his hand pausing on the door knob.

"Wait," Sunow said, looking around as though for assistance or danger. He was jumpy. Oh, he was jumpy, "Do you think we_ should_ go in? It might be dangerous. We don't know what's in there...."

"What action do you propose?" Freeza asked almost breezily, "You were the one who wanted to know what that sound was."

Sunow was perplexed for a reaction. In his youth, he had been victim to numerous cruel tricks from his peers, most afflicted for his timidity and tendency toward hesitation. Was he to hesitate now? In front of the off-planet?

Another scream filled the starry night.

Sunow took a deep breath.

"Let's go in."

The other Aeesu-jin expressed a smirk, turned the knob, and the two entered the house. 

The the raucus sound was not difficult to follow to its source. Down the hall, on the left, the two Aeesu-jin paused in the doorway of the house's bedroom. Within, on the single bed, Son Gohan lay, half-under the sheets, fast asleep. 

It had been the boy screaming.

As the two watched, his body twisted and turned under the sheets, his clawed fingers tearing at his mattress, he gave forth another inhuman howl, starting with a low whimper, snowballing in volume, wavering higher and louder until the windows shook in their panes and he started choking. 

"Oh, my....," Sunow heard himself say. He held both hands over his mouth. He felt sweat drip down his back.

Next to him, Freeza snorted, "So it's the gaki," he said, "Now you know, Sunow-san, what the sound was," he turned to exit, elbowing the other to follow, "and now we can leave."

"Uhm," Sunow said, looking at him, then back at the boy, who, with his sheets twisted around his legs, was making small, _'Aaaah....nn...AAAaah'_ sounds, "We can't just..._leave_ him like that."

Freeza looked at the youth, in all his disheveled glory, then losely coiled his tail behind him in curiousity, not without a hint of indifference, then, turning to Sunow, said, "Why not?"

The Aeesu-jin opened his mouth to answer, his tongue lifting to express, but a shrieking wail, devoid of all conscious restraint and forced to a sharp pitch, interupted him, and with a wild thrash that drew both Aeesu-jin's attention, Gohan, still restlessly asleep, threw himself from his bed, landing square on his back. The impact did little more than knock the wind from him, but it must have interupted his dream, for, now on the ground, he was no longer thrashing or wailing; he was out of breath. His eyes were open.

"Son Gohan?" Sunow asked, concerned, taking two tentative steps forward. The boy turned his head, responding to his name, but his eyes were still hazy; he looked as though he was asleep with his eyes open. "Are you okay?"

There was no recognition in the youth's eyes, but, slowly, his face contorted in grief, his brow knitted, his eyes watered, and he said, not quite looking directly at Sunow, "I'm sorry, everyone. I'm really sorry.... I didn't.... I didn't want to hurt anyone, honest.... All those people.... I'm so sorry..."

"Gohan?" Sunow asked again, hoping to bring him from his dilusion, but hesitant to approach lest he suddenly turn violent.

But the boy's eyes closed again, from deep within his narrow chest, he gave a great sigh of relief. His face shifted to that of a porceline doll, peacefully serene, without a fear in the world. Innocent as the angles themselves. His lashes still glistened with tears.

Sunow looked to Freeza in question, but the other Aeesu-jin had already left.

***

Garlic Junior closed his eyes again, muttering quietly to himself, "Guess it's over now."

----------------------------------------------------

In the largest room of the Tahch-jin fortress stood the largest ansamble of Tahch-jin owned warriors on the planet. Every sentry, every secretary, every servant, slave, general, cadet, peon that either Joru or Henning owned. Each stood alike, feet apart, shoulders back, chests out, heads up, hands strictly held behind their backs.

There must have been nearly a thousand, two thirds of them being Aeesu-jin.

Henning and Joru walked, side by side, before them, pacing up and down the line, inspecting each man with a sharp eye and correcting with a sharper tone, "Chin up, warrior, there's nothing interesting on the ground." "This isn't home, warrior, straighten up that slouch." "Are you squatting or standing? Straighten up those knees. Tahch-jin warriors got pride."

It was an act that Henning greaty enjoyed, and Joru abhored. And Joru felt worse, now, than he had ever felt in his entire life. These warriors were being prepared to hunt down Son Gohan, to scour the planet, every inch if neccessary, every shadow and crevice, every corner and every cave, all the highs and all the lows and everything inbetween, in search. 

Joru felt like he was going to throw up. His head pounded. His stomach churned. The stress had given him a nervious twitch in his right eye that irritated him to no end, and his eyes watered often because of it.

There was nothing he could do but play along. If Henning got even an _inkling_ that his own brother had betrayed him, Joru was quite sure it would the his very end. Nothing could save him from his brother's wrath.

Henning, on his own, was excited by the prospect of the hunt, and in his excitement he had gone through the trouble of finding his commanders hat; a startched, deep blue with a wide, short black bill to block the sun from getting into his eyes, which he wore at a cocky angle. Every time he made eye contact with Joru, he grinned widely and tipped his hat with a thumb. Oh, he was thrilled.

Their inspection of the men satisfactory, the two Tahch-jin brothers met in front of the ansamble to talk in quiet tones.

Henning was almost wiggly in his eagerness, "Things are getting together fast then planned, brother dear!"

"Yes," Joru said, unable to bring any excitement into his own voice. He was merely warring with sounding dead-pan.

"We have all the supplies packed?" Henning's eyes gleamed. He fingered the brim of his hand with a white hand, his weight shifting from one foot to the other in a little ansy-dance.

"Reports just came in." Joru tapped the data log he held in his hand, "We have everything packed but the chi detectors. It's taking longer than estimated to reproduce them with the alterations you wanted; our scientists are working with alien technology, here and don't quite understand-"

"Will they be done tomarrow?" Henning interupted, his eyes studying the room of solders. He removed his hat, ran his hand through his blue hair, then replaced the hat again, adjusting the brin until it was angled as he liked it again. 

"If the mass-production goes all night...," Joru paused, reading the report had had only previously skimmed, "Yes. They'll be completely packed by eight in the morning at the latest."

"Warriors, men," Henning suddenly turned to address the large group, "Departure has been bumped up! We leave at eight tomarrow morning!"

"_Sir, yes, sir!_" The group spoke as one.

Henning grinned widely, _I'm coming, little Gohan. Soon we'll be back together again._

Joru abruptly left the room, and hand on his stomach. He was feeling queazy.

**To be continued......**

   [1]: http://chelsee0.tripod.com/suit.htm



	27. CM27

Contradicting Mission

I know the last couple of parts had been dragging, but I'd been busy extremely distracted this summer (Driver's Ed is just like school, only more boring and over-airconditioned.) I'll try to poop out better parts from now on, with more likable action, for, as I've been counceled, detail and description is a lot like love, it is the spice of life, but it can choke and smother anything alive if over-administered.

**---------------------------------------**

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 27**

When you go to bed with soft blankets, a tender matress, and a well stuffed feather pillow, it's rather peculiar, down right surprising, to find youself waking up on the floor, laying awkwardly on your shoulder, _without _your blankets--hell, without your bloody shirt. 

As Gohan blearily opened his eyes, he contemplated this.

He was less coordinated in waking than he had been in months; drowzy, groggy, his eyes puffy and swollen. Had he been crying in his sleep? Kami he hoped not, he was getting rather old for that. On his back, his hands flat on the floor at his sides, his tail was gently curled around his right leg, the tip swaying lazily back and forth against his ankle. He must look, he mused, rather funny and more than a tad vulnerable with his bare chest and legs exposed for all to see.

He stared at his cealing, unmoving but to blink, or the gentle swish of his tail. All was silent. Peaceful. Quit serene, really. Quiet. Were he on Earth, he could _swear_ birds would be singing outside.

He wanted to get into a fight.

It was an odd hankering, one highly out of character for him, as he was well aware, yet it was indisputably strong, and loudly predominant in his mind. He must have had one hellishly bad dream, adrenaline was already pumping strong and true through his system, and as consciousness crept back to him, flushing out the muddy waters of his mind, his heart beat faster and faster in his chest.

He had the strong urge to get up, go outside, and punch Bojack square in the jaw, just to see the Biraju-jin's reaction. Oh, he knew the reaction. Bojack had already demonstrated, loudly, his tendency to retaliate. 

Kami, he wanted to fight something.

He raised a hand up, and fumbled along the top of his bed until he found one of his blankets, with a tug, he pulled it down to the floor and spread it out over his legs, and up to his chin. He wasn't cold. He just wanted the blanket. It smelled like Earth.

He glanced at the window in his room, his perspective skewed by his ground-level angle, and saw that the sky was still rather dark out. It was early, early morning. Oh, yes. The birds would be singing on Earth right now. So freaking loud sleep would be impossible. 

It was such a vivid memory, the sounds of the birds, that even when Gohan closed his eyes to sleep again he imagined he could hear them, twittering and warbling their little hearts away until he was almost driven mad with the cranky impulse to go outside and light all the trees of Paouzu Mount on fire, just to get a few more hours of sleep.

His tail twitched against the ground with annoyance.

He rolled over, throwing the covers off, and, supporting himself heavily on his knees, stood up. Even the good memories were irritating right now. He was in an angry mood, a bad mood. A raving, flaming fighting mood.

And he was famished.

He walked stiffly through his house, his abused body sore and unbending, his left leg refusing to support his weight and throbbing out his hearts rhythm. Scratching his stomach, he paused at the enterance of his kitchen to scrutinize his spotless linoleum with surprising annoyance. It looked almost too clean. He could still smell the pine-scented disinfectant he had used to scrub everything spotless.

It churned his empty stomach. He wrinkled his nose, and walked to his fridge on his toes, lifting himself above the sickeningly clean floor as far as possible. He was full of ugly hate right now. Hopefully food would help with the problem.

----------------------------------------

Four o'clock.

After fruitless hours of lying awake, staring at his cealing, eyes wide open, Henning decided sleep was not coming. He tried tossing and turning, changing to countless positions, with his pillow, without it, tried laying on his back, then on his side, then on his face. He groaned and moaned and loudly lamented his hurting side, then smiled and giggled as he thought of something rather pleasant.

Son Gohan.

He still remembered the sound of the boy's tortured screams, and the smell of his blood, and the look on his face as it tightened with pain; remembered how his slender body had twisted, and how his tail had coiled so humbly between his legs, and, yes, the gleam of life in his eyes as he lashed out. And he remembered, with specific detail, the way the boy had _felt_, his thoughts and his dreams and, yes, his pain, and horror and fear, deep and swelling, his fear of death and fear of life and the unknown, hand in hand with his curiosity and dignity, pushing him forward through his life one tentative step at a time.

Now that he was gone.... Henning felt left out, somehow. For one momentous half hour he had been the major playing roll in that boy's life, and now.... Now he was out there, living and breathing and thinking, _without_ Henning....

It was then that the Tahch-jin discovered he still had four more hours to wait until the troups and the packing were completely ready. And it was then that he decided to get out of bed and get dressed, pulling his favored hat over his blue hair with definate gusto. And it was then that he decided to get his brother up as well.

For it was also then that he decided he and Joru could be ready to leave within half an hour, and could begin scouting out the land.

He was going to find that boy. Now. No more waiting.

------------------------------------------

The food Gohan had stolen from the Tahch-jin was almost gone. Two bins. Enough for one good meal, or two lousy ones, was all the remained from the heist. The boy ate only one container's worth as his morning sup; the thought that soon he would be starving and out of food--unless he tried stealing more from the Tahch-jin, which he didn't really consider as an option--did nothing to help his mood.

After breakfast, broodingly, he washed his hands and, not bothering to get dressed, he got out the scarf around which he had carefully wrapped the pieces of his project, and returned to the livingroom, where his tools and toolbox had been left out over night. Sitting on the floor, crosslegged, his tail loosly coiled around his thigh, he began to work. Diligently. Mindlessly. He allowed his mind, as dark as it was, to haze and wander, while his mechanical instincts took over the tasks of his hands. 

He had anxious energy in great abundance, and he didn't know why. He didn't like being in a bad mood, didn't like the feeling of annoyance or vicious hate, or how he swore at even the slightest mishap; everything was a bother to him. The sound of his house settling made him want to hit things, the _crick, crick, crick_ of his screwdriver, busily working on his project, made him want to scream. His tail lashed and cracked like a whip against the ground.

He wished he knew at least _what_ was putting him in such a state of mind. He shook his head at himself as he continued.

He had to use a pair of needle-nosed pliers to hold some of the mechanical pieces he was using, fitting them together in a way he could only hope that was right, and using a small pair of tweezers to connect the semi-final product to a watch battery. He was pretty sure he knew what he was doing now. Without the weary sleepiness of last night, thinking through his project was easy. Too bad the task wasn't.

He was trying to make a transmitter miniature enough to connect to his walk-man's headphones. They were the small kind of headphones that fit into each ear individually. They were extremely small. Extremely complex. Gohan, too busy to open them entirely up and see, was only estimating, hell, _guessing_, at their wiring. The hardest part, by far, was reversing the second pair of headphone's purpose; altering their purpose of auditing sound to picking up sound.

But Bulma had taught him well. With a warrior's steady hand and a mechanic's well-trained eye, he had assembled a set; two ear pieces, into what he was pretty sure to be his goal.

The were each about the size of his thumb nail, and as he held them close to face on his palm, he realized just how delicate of work he had been doing. He almost felt proud of his accomplishments; he had no book, no instructions, no tutor; yet he was next to certain they would work right.

He had made two communicators. 

To finish them off, he went to his bedroom closet, and got out a metal clothes hanger, tearing off two lengths of wire about five inches in length. Bending them around the mini-communicators, he made secure ear wires.

Expirimentally, he hooked the wire around the back of his ear in such a way that the cannibalized earphone fit snugly into his lobe, with the other, altered earphone-turned-microphone angled in the general direction of his mouth. Finding the particular switch, his tail curving hopefully behind his back, he turned the device on. 

_Kkkhhshhkkk_, an explotion of static bombarded him; still not totally awake, it hurt his poor Saiya-jin-sensitive ears like crazy; the hair on his tail stood on end, his teeth ached. He quickly grabbed up the other reciever, fumbled over it until he found its switch, and turned this one on as well. The static stopped, replacing the savage buzz with the dull hum of machinery, an almost expectant, waiting sound.

He tapped the mini-reciever in his hand, hearing a reassuring _thump, thump, thump_ in his ear. It was working. Thank kami, it was working. Still, he had more testing to do, and he was going to need some help.

He stood, careful to set the two pieces of machinery--irreplacable in this situation--on the lampstand of his living room, and went to his room to get dressed. In his Saiya-jin suit and Earthling boots. 

For some odd reason, the thought of his clothes made him feel a tad happier. Even if it was just a little bit. They really did look funny.

-----------------------------------------

Chiling the Aeesu-jin, traitor to Joru, was frightened almost witless; his ability to speak had dimished to studdered 'yessir, no-sir's, his placid Aeesu-jin face wriddled with worry lines, and his old childhood nervious habit of messing with his mouth had returned.

As he stood before Heng, the great and mighty Heng, and his two giant, powerful secretaries, he wondered if perhaps he had made a mistake betraying Joru to come forward. It had felt so noble when he first thought about it, of how patriotic it would be to point out the most deadly threat imposing itself on the Aeesu-jin people in all history. To save the entire planet, and to rescue his fair planet from the clutches of the evil that held her.

He had thought he would be rewarded. Given a medal. Fame, glory, prestige.

He feared for his life as he stood, his tail proclaiming submissiveness, his head lowered, his tongue busily circling his mouth in restless energy. He was waiting. Standing quietly while the three giant Aeesu-jin mulled over his revelations.

Finally, a great rumble came from deep in Heng's throat; a growl more menacing than a great beast of prey, and in his growl he said a word, "Henning."

Eagerly, the youngest remaining secretary leaned forward, "Sir," he said, "Let me gather up an _army_. We'll march to the Tahch-jin fortress," he paused, his ocre eyes looking to Chiling, "This little fellow could lead us there, and we could kill off every one of them-"

"I agree, sir," Tzukalt said, nodding his domed yellow head, "This had gone on long enough-"

"Henning will die," Heng said, "But only when I say so. For now.... _Chiling_!"

The small Aeesu-jin could swear his heart stopped, he looked timidly about the room, expecting some other Aeesu-jin with his name to come forward. Finally, sucking at his front teeth, tentatively, he said, "Uh...yes?...Sir?" Immidiatly feeing foolish afterward; he sounded like a clout.

"Go back into this Tahch-jin strong hold. Keep a constant vigil on the Le'Armont brothers, follow them wherever they go." He turned to his secretaries, explaining, "Henning is looking for Son Gohan. Where there's Son Gohan, there is Bojack. Can you imagine all three of them, the Tahch-jin, the Biraju-jin, and the Saiya-jin all in the same place at the same time?"

"We could kill three birds with one stone," Tzukalt agreed, "So to speak."

"We would be doing more than that," Heng said, waved his arm at Chiling, "You have your orders."

"Yessir," Chiling said, exiting, feeling down. He had left the Tahch-jin to escape their insanity, in hopes of improving his life. Instead, he was being thrown back. No medal for him. He would probably be killed later.

---------------------------------------

"What is it?" Forester asked, slightly nerviously, as Gohan fastened one of his newly-made communicators to his ear. It was more diffucult than expected; he had forgotten that Aeesu-jin ears and Human/Saiya-jin ears were differently shaped. He was glad he had asked the Aeesu-jin boy for help in this area; one side of the transmission _was_ meant for an Aeesu-jin to wear. 

"It's a transmitter," Gohan, already wearing his own head-set, said. When he had finally twisted the earwire to fit securely, yet comfortably on the side of Forester's head, he stepped back. "It's for long-distance communication."

Tapping it and lightly touching it expirimentally, Forester inquired, "Where'd you get them?"

Gohan fingered the titled 'on-switch' on his own ear, replying distractedly, "I made them this morning." He turned his head to the side, pointing out the switch for the other to see, "Turn it on. I want to field test them."

Screwing his eyes and he felt along the machinery blindly, Forester did so, flipping the little switch. The raucus sound of static sounded until Gohan, too, turned his on, and the expectant buzz-silence filled their ears.

A frown wrinkled Forester's forehead while, for the first time that day, Gohan smiled. 

As testing ground, Gohan had chosen a large, open field, surrounded by jagged boulders; powder blue and light purple grass carpeted the ground beneath them; Aeesu grass accentuating the Aeesu-jin boy's pale green skin, while at the same time making Gohan appear more and more out of place, foreign. But Gohan felt mis-placed in a good way. It was an odd reminder that, though he didn't belong here, somewhere out there he _did_ belong, and he was taking the steps neccesary to return there once again.

The mood would have been almost happy, if it weren't for the two boy's audiance.

Seated along the rocky wall surrounding the clearing, not too close to one another, nor to far away, were the camp members in their number's minute entirety. Sunow and Eesei, whispering occationally to eachother, sat on the same boulder, the little girl stretched out to collect sunlight into her reptilian skin and rest her head on her father's lap. Twenty-or-so meaters from them, on a jagged miniature cliff-face, Freeza sat, legs crossed; his hand, elbow on his knee, supported his head at the chin; his ruby eyes flitted from the boys in the grass, to the father and his daughter, and the pale purple sky. 

His mind was on other things, unknown, and of little importance to anyone but himself. 

On the other side of the field, his granite eyes concealed behind partly close lids in reflextive meditation, sat Garlic. Half-listening to the boy's conversation with his acute, pointed ears, and half-following the chi's of the Aeesu-jin miled away, mulling in the underground, he had a mild sense of unease. The phrase _'something evil this way comes' _continually played in his mind, ironic for one such as him, for he prided himself of his own entirely unholy view of life. He was an evil bugger and damn proud of it.

But Bojack's attention was souly focused on the activities of the field, and of each movement the two youths made. He did not sit, but stood, his arms crossed, his head down, looking up through his brows at the two boys. A silent warning, an unspoken threat. His presence was not to be ignored.

As Gohan gave Forester some last minute instructions on use and manipulations of the second-hand pieces of scrap transmitters, he could feel the blue giant's gaze on the back of his head, never fully allowing him to forget the gravity of the situation at hand.

Not even two days left. 

_Tick tock. Tick tock._

It was damn nerve-wracking.

Walking backwards until a space of fifteen feet stood between him and Forester, Gohan tapped the microphone of his transmitter, then said in a low tone, "Can you read me?"

From the fifteen feet away, Gohan saw Forester shrug as his voice carried clearly, if not with a bit of static and interference, "Loud and clear. You hear me?"

Gohan gave a sigh of relief. Though all his calculations had been checked and rechecked, and he had already done his own, smaller testing with successful results, he had still been deathly afraid that it wasn't going to work. Afraid that something was wrong that he hadn't noticed before, or there was a connection failure, or he had simply _overlooked_ some important fact or other. But here was Forester's voice, transmitting through his own creation, with approximated clearity.

He almost felt like dancing; his dreary mood had partly melted back into his defrosting sense of hope. Underlaying his optimism, however, he still wanted to attack something or someone and just fight; storm the Aeesu-jin underground with no goal other than a body count and no objective other than the high of battle and the thrill of the fight and the ultimate victory found in a vanquished foe.

He shook his head at himself, his tail lacing up around his wrist, and he said into the reciever, "Okay. Walk back ten more feet."

Forester obliged, and the two continued testing for a good hour more.

Garlic's sense that something bad was happening increasing by the minute.

-----------------------------------------------

Henning stood atop a crest of jagged rock, his cape fluttering in the wind behind him, his hat pulled down to shield his eyes from the gleam of the rising sun. He glanced at his watch.

Six o'clock.

Turning, he called behind him, "Come, now, brother, hurry up!"

There was a mumbled, angry reply, as two white hands appeared at the lip of the crest, and, gradually, the shape of Joru Le'Armont appeared, climbing and scrambling until he was beside his brother, "I didn't want to go, Henning dear," he said, pulling his own blue-and-black hat tighter on his head to keep it from blowing off in the wind. "You could always have gone without me."

Henning only smiled, clapping his brother on the shoulder as he stood up, "And go without your pleasant company? You must be mad. Do you remember when we were children, and you used to always cry to mother when I left you behind? Well, now that I'm _not_ leaving you, you're still upset?" His blue eyebrows wrinkled in mock-offence, "I'm hurt, brother. There is no pleasing you."

Looking down at the scaling, fifty foot drop beneath them, Joru began to realize he might have a fear of heights, "Oh, Henning, let's go home, okay? I'm feeling ill. I need to take a shower-"

"Oh, learn to have a little fun," Henning interupted, then gathered his legs beneath him and leapt from the craig, half-flying a good seventy feet to the next rocky out-crop. Heights, obviously, had no adverse affects on him. Turning, he yelled through the sudden distance between them, "It's fun to be dirty, sometimes!"

Trembling, not bothering to reply, Joru hesitantly coiled his legs beneath him to follow his brother's insanely dangerious jump. The Tahch-jin had potential to be qualified warriors, they were naturally strong, quick to react in combat situations, agile, and rather large. Their one drawback, which Joru was loathing fiercly at the moment, was their peculiar inability to manipulate their chi well enough to fly.

Jumping was the extent of un-aided airborn travel.

So jump Joru did, flailing through the air as he had done countless times since leaving the Tahch-jin fortress, unprotected, and in great fear. He wished he had at least had time to call for a few sentries as escorts.

They had been traveling for longer than an hour by now, their inborn stamina allowing them to travel a good fifteen, twenty miles in that short a time, each mile gained causing Joru's weak stomach to sink into his guts, and Henning's heart to soar through the sky with the chiruping birds and the drifting clouds.

As they scaled a final bluff, they looked down apon a beautiful sight, one of a sea, or possibly an ocean. Water, reflecting the purple sky until it looked like liquid amethest, crashing against the stones along the shore in a wash of diamond droplets, spraying twenty feet into the air. Along the edge of the water ran a length of light gray sand, and beyond the sand was a series of patches of light purple grass and deep purple shrubs. 

Both brother's drew their breath; Henning removing his hat at the majesty of such a sight, Joru rubbing his hands against his pants, feeling very dirty in the presence of such rightious beauty.

Henning saw Gohan's capsule house first.

Putting his hand on Joru's shoulder, he pointed at the domed white complex, sitting at quite a distance from them, just out of reach of the shoreline, "What's that? Over there...that white thing."

Squinting, Joru leaned forward, the bill of his hat blocking the sun from his eyes, "I don't know. Could it be some sort of structure? Ahouse?"

"Let's go check it out, then," Henning said with a boyish smile and, grabbing ahold of his brother's cape, he began to run down the side of the bluff, the white capsule house, in such contrast to its dark, morning surroundings, growing closer and closer, unprotected from the two Tahch-jin making their way toward it.

**To be continued......**


	28. CM28

Contradicting Mission

I owe this part to a lovely plate of eggs, sunny-side up, with a piece of tough toast, well buttered, to soak up all the delectable runny yoke. *hails eggs in all their splendor*

---------------------------------------- 

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 28**

High above the little capsule house, miles and miles away, the wind shifted from a warm, southerly breeze to a chillier northern nip, sweeping the purple grass of the fields into magical ripples, like seaweed in an active ocean current. And there began to occure, also, a new heaviness to the air, a pressure of moisture, humidity. Oppressive. And with the heaviness and the sharp shift of air came an odd calm. As though the whole planet had stayed its breathing in anxious, silent waiting.

The weather was changing.

The Tahch-jin had never seen such a peculiarly shaped structure before. It was a house of some sort, of that they were sure; through the windows they could see the impliments of comfortable living: chairs, couches, a kitchen, a bedroom, tables, drawers, cabinets, closets, and other things beyond sight. 

They circled the entire complex twice in silence, exchanging quizical glances, their foreheads furrowed, as they passed each window. It was completely deserted, no one to be seen. Abandoned. Rounding the house, nearing the only enterance for the second time, Henning turned and faced his brother, saying, "I say we go inside."

Nibbling at his lip, nervously rubbing his hands together, Joru responded, "I suppose..."

"Goodness, your enthusiasm astounds me," Henning grinned, pinching the bill of Joru's hat, pulling it down over his eyes. He really got a bang out of those hats. Irritated, the gentler Tahch-jin readjusted his head gear and, sulking, followed his brother to the doorstep; he nearly crashed into his back, infact, as Henning suddenly jerked to a stop before reaching the door.

"What is it?" Joru asked, hovering closely to his brother incase danger showed itself; he felt so very vulnerable out in the open.

Henning had one of his trademark 'wild-grins' on his white face, and he pointed at the sand in front of the door, "Look at this," he said, and squated, "See?"

Joru knealed beside him, "What?" He studied the ground, "What are you looking at?" Henning traced a shape pressed into the sand, a shape Joru, totally inexpirianced in tracking, finally recognized. "A foot print?"

Henning nodded, growing excited, "And this isn't an Aeesu-jin foot print.... and it's not any sort of wild life.... Joru, oh, dear brother, do you know what this is a foot print of?"

The timid brother could swear he felt his stomach sinking slowly into his bowels, he swallowed dryly, then shook his head, _no_.

"I'd say, going from size and weight...," Henning said, drawing out his conclusion that both brothers already had, "That this is a boy's foot print...perhaps five foot four.... a hundred and fourty pounds.... I'd say aged twelve or thirteen. The shape and pressure suggest the aided balance of a tail... Let's assume this is a Saiya-jin's footprint. Who, dear, dear brother, do we know, that fits this description?"

Joru's body was rigid, _no, please don't let it be_.....

"Do we know any Saiya-jin boys? Joru, brother?"

Joru was unable to respond.

Henning smiled, "This is little Gohan's house. Don't you think? Brother?"

Joru opened his mouth, but before he responded a tiny voice said from inside his pocket, "Joru Le'Armont-sama? Sir?"

Grateful for the interuption--he had been certain the next thing he said would give away his betrayal and endanger his life--he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, hand-held communicator. Holding down on the transmission button, he cleared his throat then spoke into it, "Yes, this is Joru Le' Armont. Go ahead."

Henning leaned forward to hear as the small voice continued, "Sir, nearly all troops are prepared to move out; most supplies are packed. We'll be completed directly on schedule, and need orders."

Henning glanced at his watch, then whispered, "Six-thirty. We have an hour and a half. Let me talk to them."

"Ah, this is Joru Le'Armont. I'm putting my brother, Henning Le'Armont on." Joru prattled, still mentally frozen, "His orders are my orders."

"Hai," came the reply.

---------------------------------------- 

"_*Krrzz*_- you hear-_*shrrkr*-_now?"

Wincing, Gohan pressed the communicator closer to his ear, "I didn't catch that, Forester" he said loudly into it, "Could you repeat?"

"*_Ksshrk*-_what!?-*_krrk*_," came the static-retarded reply, hardly understandable through the intense interference.

Gohan cupped his hand over his eyes, blocking out the still-morning sun from his vision, and squinted, looking across the purple field at Forester. The Aeesu-jin was barely within sight, his light-green body hardly a speck, even for Gohan's Saiya-jin-acute sight. Perhaps the length of two football fields. Not a bad distance of transmission for a first time.

But it wasn't as far as Gohan had hoped. Nor was it as far as he needed.

It was, really, a large disappointment. His tail hung behind him in near-defeat, and he was unable to control it well enough to pull it out of such a stance. 

"Forget it." He said into the reciever, "Let's regroup."

"_*Shhrk*_-what did-_*rrksh*_-say?"

Gohan raised his arms and waved, hoping to get Forester's attention, then began making 'c'mere' gestures. Soon, Forester was waving an acknowledgment, and began to jog the long distance between them.

Trotting to intercept him, hobbling slighly on his messed up leg, a sinking feeling came over Gohan. He still had the rest of the day and tomarrow to fix the problem with the transmitter. But in another perspective, that wasn't even two days. _Tick tock, tick tock_. Needless to say, he was torn between optimism that soon this whole ordeal could be over, and fearful that he wouldn't be prepared in the short, two days Bojack had allowed him.

Irony, ever on cue, reared its malformed head, and, just as his fears of Bojack came to mind, he found himself jogging past the great blue Biraju-jin, standing ever tall in his nine-foot-plus frame, arms folded across his great barrel chest. He lowered his head and grinned at the boy, holding up four fingers. Then he brought down one finger. Then another.

Gohan stopped in mid-step, his eyes glued on those two final fingers, for an instant flicking to Bojack's face, then back to the fingers. Then, one more finger lowered. Yes, one more day was in progress. Burning away with each passing second. Only one full day was left.

A distant clap of thunder sounded miles away.

Gohan turned his back to Bojack and ran, albeit faster than before, across the field toward Forester. 

_Tick tock, tick tock_.

---------------------------------------- 

"Final preparations considered, as well as the time it takes to actually get here...," Henning said, handing the communicator back to Joru, who tucked it away in a fold of his cape, "The troops will be here in about two hours. Behind schedule. I hate being behind schedule..."

"They're coming here?" Joru asked, pointing at the ground beneath his feet, "As in, to this house?"

Henning grinned, spinning on one heel twice in a little dance, "What better place to keep nearly a thousand, loyal sentries than Son Gohan's door step? It'll be a splendid welcoming party for that dear boy, don't you think?"

"Ah," Joru said, "Um, well, we don't really know if this _is_...Son Gohan's...house..." he drawled off as Henning began to dance, spinning on his heels, heading towards the door of the domed house. He suddenly remembering that they had been intending to entering before the call had interupted them.

"Then let's go in and see!" Henning said, his hand on the knob. He turned to Joru, "Well?"

Defeated--what option did he have?--Joru followed him, his shoulders slumped.

The interior wasn't spacious, but it didn't feel necessarily cramped. More cozy. Certainly welcoming. Comfortable. The carpet was a rust-red hue, the walls a gentle green, the cealing white. In the enterance hall, which extened only a few good feet before turning off into another room, there was a small mat that read "_Welcome_"; Henning grinned at it a moment, Joru thoroughly wiped his feet; he always felt upset when he tracked dirt in.

On passing a rack of hangers for coats, Henning paused, removed his hat, and hung it up. He turned and removed Joru's hat as well, mentioning, "It's impolite to wear a hat in someone else's house." He hung it beside his own, then continued into the house, rubbing at his hat-hair, looking left then right as he entered the mini-house's living room, admiring.

"Nice place," Joru mentioned off-handedly, walking with his hands behind his back, feeling for all the world like a trespasser. He slowed in the living room to push against the cushions of the couch, admiring their gentle submission to his weight. He walked on, testing the foot rest in the same manner, then the easychair, on which sat a book, a page folded to mark a place.

His eyes, colorblind and farsighted, worthless, were the last thing he was using to take in the house. His sixth sense, the sensitive Tahch-jin ability to _feel_ reeled at the comfort and easiness, the welcoming, open-armed warmth of the house. This was a house of refuge, a secluded island that excluded the entire world, creating a quite haven for the one who lived here. 

He felt unnatural here. Unwelcomed. No one belonged in this house, every piece of furniture proclaimed as he feather-brushed his finger tips over them, no one except the one who lived here. 

"Joru-dear?" Henning's voice sounded from deeper in the house, startling Joru from his thoughts; so caught up had he been that he had failed to search beyond the first room. "Come here! Look at this and just _try_ to tell me this isn't dear little Gohan-chan's home."

Joru followed his voice down a narrow hall--the walls continued to remain a light mint-green color, and the carpeted floor continued to look like smoked umbre--until he came across a white box/table of sorts, though it looked more like a large instrument, beside which stood another box-table the same size but differently proportioned (they were unfamiliar with a machine designed in such a way, though indeed they had machines of similar function, for they had stumbled, unwittingly, across the house's washer and dryer.)

Spread neatly across the top of the washer, in all its spotted, bloody, shredded glory, was the mutilated remains of Gohan's orange gi, never to be orange again. The two brothers exchanged knowing glances, recognizing it for what it was. Henning beamed from ear to ear. Joru forced a fearful smile as an icy hand laid hold of his spine. 

"The walls are closing in on you, Gohan-chan," Henning said, his eyes closed, his hands behind his back. Oh, how pleased he was.

---------------------------------------- 

A strong north wind, bearing the smell of heavy moisture, reached the boy as he watched the northern skyline, following the distant path of a series of dark, foreboding cumulous clouds, riding the wild wind, chasing away the gentle stratus clouds in bulk; heading, it seemed, in his direction. Big, dark clouds; tall and imposing. Gray and black and brown with picked up dirt. Purple, almost, and swollen with natural fury. From deep inside the clouds, he saw a frenzied flash of lightning, dancing clear to the ground, striking, then vanishing like ghost, all in the blink of an eye. 

The factors Gohan knew and recognized. And, on a primal sense, though the dooms-day clouds were many miles away, he dreaded them. A storm was coming. A big one. 

_A tornado is all I need right now_, Gohan shuddered to himself, vaguely recalling his hard nights during the first three or four months of Piccolo's training in his early youth. It was a very long time ago, and though his memories were unclear and fuzzy, he remembered being wet, and cold, and hungry, and scared, and oft-times hurt, and alone. Especially alone. As horrible as it was, he was already hungry and scared and hurt and alone. Especially alone. He gratefully thought of his safe, warm capsule house. At least he knew he wouldn't be wet or cold.

Nevertheless, he sighed as he looked carefully at the tiny communicator in his hands, turning it over in search of some easy-to-find flaw, longing for the once taken-for-granted use of Bulma-san's extensive laboritories. Or simply her tools. Or even simply Bulma-san. Gohan was certain she could aid him in this tight pinch with her technical genius.

"Too much interferance," was his diagnosis as he sat, cross-legged, beside Forester, "I need....oh, a more complex transmitter. Or maybe an antenne would help....I don't know." He began studying the device again, his forhead wrinkled. No need to mention the storm. It was hours away.

"Do you have either?" Forester asked, idly chewing a blade of grass between his white teeth. So damn calm. He didn't fully comprehend the gravity of the situation, just as he didn't seem to grasp the chance that he could die very soon if the Tahch-jin weren't stopped. Gohan supposed that Aeesu-jin children, their species living far longer than any human, took longer to mature than, perhaps, an Earthling youth. Of perhaps it was just Forester being himself.

Sighing, tucking both communicators into a pocket of his Saiya suit, Gohan responded, "I can only hope I find something... Maybe I could use....it would be tricky, but yeah, perhaps..."

Leaning closer, Forester asked, "What? You have an idea?"

Gohan shook his head, "Just a guess. I don't know. Nothing has been working right-"

He stopped talking and turned his head to look far beyond the field. He was no longer seeing with his eyes, rather, reaching out with his keen sense of chi. Something had gave him a chill of foreboding....

Seated fifty meters away, Garlic's ink-black eyes had already focuses in the same direction. His brow creased, his eyes pinched, he was begining to put the ominous feeling he'd been expiriancing for the past couple of hours into shape. And it was huge, and it was seething, and it was deadly. And, slowly, picking up speed, it was traveling across the plains and grasses and sands of the Aeesu terrain like a giant wave of broiling black death. 

It was a rolling army. Boiling over the rock formations, flooding through valleys, washing up mountainsides and splashing down the other side. Men. It wasn't one, large, evil being of emense size and power. It was many. Many many. Far too many for Garlic to count. Hundreds. More than hundreds.

Gohan was on his feet, his tail defensively arched behind him, his shoulders swept back. He was actually trembling, now. Not just fear. He was jittery. Shaky. Defensive in his his temporarily crippled condition. His heart began to pound furiously, his eyes dialated, his blood-flow accelerated. The coarse hairs of his tail bristled on end. He was chemically preparing himself for an fight he knew he shouldn't participate in....And yet....there was a longing in him to engage them in battle. Oh, how his body wanted to fight. It frightened him, that lust for battle, just as it exhilerated him.

"What's wrong with you?" Forester, still seated with ease, asked up at him, weedling the grassblade back and forth in his mouth with his tongue.

"Ah," Gohan said, distracted, limping slighly in the direction of the rolling sea of chi, "Trouble." It was an easy enough answer. The boy wasn't feeling up to elaborating.

"What do you mean?" Sunow asked, pulling his daughter protectively into his lap, wrapping his arms around her. He was developing a stronger and stronger fear for his children.

Looking up at her father, Eesei inquired, "Papa? Are we going to run away again?" Adding, "I don't want to. I like living by the water. It's nicer than the Underground. Are we going to have to leave?"

Sunow could only hush her, saying, "I hope not, dear one. I hope not. I like the water, too."

Gohan didn't hear them. His eyes studied the horizon, attempting to count the enemy's great number. There were too many chi, all mulling together. He would have just as much luck trying to count the ants on a busy ant hill. His tail slashed the air behind him in nervous/anxious energy. 

"An army," Garlic took the opportunity to answer, "Hundreds of them." He added, swallowing nervousness, "And seem fit to kill."

_Fight or flight_, Gohan's instincts said loudly to himself, _run at or away from the enemy, but don't just stand there_. Gohan said, "I'm going to check it out." He never got two steps.

"Just sit down, bozu," Bojack interupted, speaking in a frightfully threatening monotone, "I have yet to see you do anything right, and if you really _need_ to get a beating, you don't need to go after any army to get it." He paused to crack his knuckles, ephasizing his statement. He repeated, "Sit down," when the boy didn't immidiatly oblige. 

Slowly, painfully, his pride suffering, Gohan sank to his knees in compliance, restraining himself from testing out the truth of Bojack's threat. The Biraju-jin, for all his nasty character flaws, had, thus far, spoken only the truth. It was odd to think about, but Bojack really didn't lie. It didn't matter. Gohan still wanted to fight him. He closed his eyes and began mindlessly pulling up handfuls of grass, wondering what was wrong with himself. His state of mind seemed altered, disaligned, off-center. He was Son Gohan. He did not _eagerly_ go _looking_ for fights. He defended himself and others, yes, he sparred and trained, yes, but he _did not look for fights!_

Kami, he wanted to attack Bojack.

An echo of thunder crossed the field.

Forester raised his voice, "So, what do we do, then? _Should_ we run?"

"We need to check the enemy out," Freeza said, soundly suspitiously as though he agreed with Gohan--though, of coarse, he did not, if only for their supreme conflict of character--finishing his statement with, "before we can come up with any other plans." He shrugged, "Who knows. They might not even be looking for us."

Oh, how the great, blue Biraju-jin narrowed his eyes, but said, finally, rationalizing, "Yes, someone should look into them-" Gohan wasn't even able to draw a breath to volunteer before Bojack said, "Not you, bozu. Just stay down." He turned his attention to Freeza, finding a peculiar respect for the Aeesu-jin's superior expiriance in dealing with--and ultimately overcoming--larger numbers. He had, after all, spent his entire life killing off thousands of planets, many of which surely had respectable armies.

"Whoever they are, and whatever they want," Freeza mused, rubbing his sharp chin, "They might have chi-detecting technology. We should send one of the Chikyuusei-jin to avoid attention."

Gohan opened his mouth to readily agree, and attempt volunteering yet again, but Bojack beat him to it, "Fine. You. Gremlin," he addressed Garlic, still uncertain of what his name was, exactly, "You know how to supress you chi, correct?"

Garlic sneared at being called 'gremlin', narrowing his eyes he gruffly replied, "I do." Then said, not waiting for Bojack to order him to, "I'll spy the enemy out." He stood, packing his chi down to zero-detectability, and turned to vanish between the rocks, "I'll be back in an hour." With that, he leapt over the rocky surroundings of the field and out of site.

Gohan suddenly stood and fast-walked in the other direction, using a gait that could almost describe his action as 'storming off.'

"Where do you think _you're_ going?" Bojack yelled after him.

"Home," Gohan snarled the word. Okay, his capsule house was a dinky representation of his _real_, ever loving home, but it was the shortest answer he had. He kept his fists at his sides and he walked. Oh, how he wanted to turn around and challenge Bojack to mortal combat. _Don't look back_.

"I'll come with you," Forester called to him, haughtily showing Bojack his pink tongue as he passed. He jogged to catch up with the other boy.

When they were shoulder to shoulder, however, Gohan said quietly, an odd sense of restraint in his voice, "Forester, I really need to be alone right now."

Forester balked, then brushed aside the words, saying, "It's us against _them_." Them obviously being the adults, "We should stick together."

Gohan shook his head 'no', almost arguing that it was only _him_ against the entire planet. But he was too angry to feel sorry for himself. What he really wanted was a fight, and he was afraid he might actualy attack the Aeesu-jin boy if he wasn't left alone. Even now he found himself studying Forester's fighting potential. Tasting his chi, noting the confindence of his walk, eyeing the already developing muscles under his light green skin and the thick, deadly tail that twitched behind him. 

Forester was, obviously, a warrior-in-training; still in his first year of easy lessons. Aeesu-jin were born with fighting capability, of that Gohan was sure, but without years of constant training and physical dicipline.... a fight was not worth a fight, when it comes to Aeesu-jin.

Gohan shuddered to realize how he was thinking. In no way, shape or form did he want to battle Forester, didn't want to hurt him, or scare him, or bring up any such competition between them. But he was angry. More than angry. Irate. Simmering. He didn't care who, but he wanted to fight someone.

"Forester, please," he said, not looking the other in the eye, looking straight ahead, instead, as he walked, "I really don't want to be around anyone."

"Oh, come on," Forester said, disreguarding him a second time, "Together we can probably take out _anyone_-"

"Go _away_." Gohan said, rather sternly, then said, "Please, just stay away from me for a little bit. Please." With that he hastened his pace, walking increasingly faster until he fell into a loping jog, favoring his unfortunate leg, then into his first all-out sprint since he had returned to camp.

Forester stopped following him, his face riddled with confusion, concern, anger and, perhaps if one looked close, hurt. "Fine!" he called after the retreating back of Gohan, "I can take on the world without you!" Mumbling, he turned and trudged back to his father and sister.

---------------------------------------- 

"Brother.....," Joru said, his arms crossed over his slender chest, "Brother, it is really not that funny."

Henning, in every way, must have disagreed. He continued to laugh and laugh, choking for air, his hands wrapped under his stomach. Oh, how laughing hurt his side--Tahch-jin took a considerable amount of time to heal impact wounds--but oh, he couldn't help himself.

The stood in the small kitchen of the odd little house, and, having just discovered the refrigerator, they had also come across the last, final container of stollen Tahch-jin food. Yes, the very food Gohan had stollen from them some days ago.

Henning found it absolutely hilarious.

Wiping a tear from his eye he said, snortling, "To think he was living off us this whole time!"

Joru shook his head, "He had to live, I guess..."

"Oh, laugh for once!" Henning said, pinching the other on the nose, "Just admit, I beg of you, that you _appreciate_ the irony of this."

Joru raised an eyebrow.

"Look," Henning said, "Look. I want to kill dear Gohan-chan, correct?" Joru shuddered in confirmation, "Well, instead of contributing to his discomfort, he uses us--our food--to make his life more pleasant. Get it? It's funny!"

Joru shook his head, only saying, worrying, "Brother, there are more pressing things at hand-"

"You worry too much."

"-such as this." Joru went on, ignoring Henning's frightfully lackadaisical statement. He held up a rather scuffed and blackened case, partially crusted with coagulated blood; he held it with a scarf to avoid actually _touching_ it. Unwittingly, he was holding Gohan's capsule case. "I found it in a pocket of the boy's....torn and tattered...bloody..."

"Joru my dear, you touched the boy's gi? You?" He was genuinely surprised, "You've developed a backbone these past couple of days. My, my. Did you _really_ feel it? Did you-"

"No," Joru said hurriedly. He had washed his hands in the sink four times after touching the thing, still feeling dirty. He would never, up till the day he died, _want_ to savor the feeling of blood and pain. 

"What is it, anyway?" Henning inquired, nimbly removing the case from his brother's grip, "Have you opened it?"

"Ah...no." Joru said, "I didn't want to...well..."

"Didn't want to touch it," Henning said knowingly. Fearlessly, he undid the clasp on the side of the case, popping it open, revealing rows of, unbeknownst to him, capsules, each neatly labeled with numbers and sorted by size and color, the inside of the case showing a chart that explained what each number was in relation to the capsule bearing it.

"How very odd," Henning said, holding a capsule up for Joru to see.

---------------------------------------- 

Never once had Garlic felt any sort of anamosity toward his size.

It gave him, he felt, an edge over the enemy. Any enemy. Hitting a small target was much trickier, he knew well; he was constantly underestimated, thus setting him at a tidy advantage; he was closer to the ground, allowing him a better sense of balance, and, as the situation was calling for presently, he was able to keep his tiny body easily out of sight.

The army was on the move. Many/most/some were Aeesu-jin, their tails held high in the air like banners, out of the way to keep from slapping against their powerfully pumping legs. There were quite a few shaggy creatures as well, sentient, loping along speedily on two legs, their gruesome faces centered ahead, their long arms swinging back and forth at their sides. And there were some amphibious monstrocities, slimy green skin, bloated purple lips, and a noticable fin lining the tops of their spotted heads.

It was a repulsive army, Garlic decided, fully aware of his own degree of hypocracy; a hideous, ugly, nasty army. A deadly army. Their chi's were phenominal; Garlic, his only knowledge of chi stemming from Earthlings, was having a hell of a time comprehending their power. But he had learned the hard way to never mistake his senses. If they felt freakisly strong, they probably were.

He ran silently, his chi suppressed beyond recognition--just like the good Earthling he was--amoung the boulders and rocks and occational shrubs that flanked each side of the rolling army, never exposed for more than half a second before he dove into what only he could consider cover. A small depression in the ground, a shadow of a cloud, he didn't need much. He felt tricky and clever, sly and devilish. The suckers had no clue he was even there.

He was spying with his ears the most, really. Yes, he saw them, yes the trailed their movements, carefully flanking them, but he could find nothing really _out_ about them in such a fashion. So he listened, his pointed ears acutely catching snatches of conversation; not liking what he was picking up, but not willing to return without a full report.

What he made out of the tid-bits of conversations: these were the Tahch-jin's army. They _did_ have a mechanical way of recognizing and locating chi. They were, indeed, here to find, specifically, Son Gohan, though finding any member of the camp, quite obviously, would be extremely unfortunate and undoubtably painful. Garlic pressed his lips into a firm line, feeling, not concern, but certain worry for himself in the least. He cared nothing for his fellow campmates, would kill them himself, probably, given the chance and opportunity (and appropriate enough situation) but he dreaded one outcome. 

He did not want to return to the Dead Zone. It was a horrible place, _created_ to rival hell in its torment, eroding away at mind and body, tormenting and teasing and taunting and never releasing. Being immortal really sucked when cast into such a place. He was almost desperate to prolong his stay in the real world the better. 

As the vile Kami Larkas has said, however, if Son Gohan were to die, he would instantly be returned to that horrible, eternal hell.....and await being erased from existance. There came his problem (which he was willing to blame on everyone, especially the goddam Kami and even more specifically on Gohan himself, for if it weren't for him he never would have had to suffer the Dead Zone in the first place), he was forced to keep a special eye on that damn gaki's well-being. Thankfully, Bojack was taking the task into his own hands for the most part, but.....

The final thing he deduced from the army, devastating the landscape in their wake, kicking up a cloud of dust visible half a mile away, was that they were heading toward a base the Tahch-jin, Joru and Henning Le'Armont, had already discovered. A base sitting along the ocean's coast. A house, specifically. White. Domed. Abandoned.

The Tahch-jin were _in_ the capsule house.

Garlic turned his direction and headed back to the field where the camp members awaited, as fast as he could run.

---------------------------------------- 

It was quite by accident that Henning de-capsulated Gohan's air car--a gift Bulma had given him on his eighth birthday--directly in the house's living room.

"What could it possibly be?" Henning fussed, holding the capsule with the number '12' emblazened on it close to his face, checking back to the case and reading what number 12 said, "Air Car."

"Very peculiar," Joru agreed, sitting on the edge of the couch, his hands on his knees. He looked dreadfully as though he didn't belong.

"Am I supposed to push this?" Henning questioned, venturing to press down on the top of the capsule, making it give a quiet _click_. He loved mashing buttons. He really did. When nothing happened, however, he was sorely dissappointed.

Now a capsule is designed for the safety of the consumer. A capsulated object does not, under any circumstance, remove itself from its tight confinement if just the ready-release button is clicked. It is, by design, set to explode from itself only once it has been thrown, the impact of hitting the ground jarring it, thus giving the final go-ahead to open.

Henning shook the device, held it up to his ear, and even attempted using his Tahch-jin sixth sense--which only determined that A.) the device did indeed belong to Gohan-chan and B.) it had been a gift of love. Very little help indeed. Irritated, he shook it once more, turned it over a few more times, looked at Joru helplessly, then tried banging his hand against it.

A capsule has no way of differentiating the impact of hitting the ground to the impact of hitting an open hand. It exploded. A colorful screen of odorless, thick smoke filled half the house even as Joru barely jumped out of the way to avoid the front bumper of the freed air car. There was a definate crunching sound as furniture and a wall were obliterated, making room for the sudden object. 

Henning found himself pinned beneath it, the explotion of being so close during the decapsulation momentarily stunning him. The front wheel was planted firmly on his chest. It was heavy. Oh, yes. And it hurt.

The dust cloud vanished quickly. Joru, finding himself cramped in the corner of the room, shakily hoisted himself onto a wing of the air car before calling, "Henning! Brother! Are you alright!?"

The reply was muffled and pained, coming from below the car. Unable to draw a real breath to vocally inform his brother of his whereabouts, he flailed his hands against the bottom of the car, hoping the sound would lead help to him.

Amazingly, his hand hit against recapsulation button, and quicker than it emerged, the car returned to its capsule, non of the smokey fanfar ensuing. Joru was dropped to the ground from his perch the same instant the intense weight was lifted from his sibling's body.

The capsule landed on Henning's stomach. 

Both brothers let out a breath of air, steadying their nerves.

"Those things are trecherous." Joru finally said.

With a cough, Henning said, "Agreed."

---------------------------------------- 

As Gohan approached his capsule house, something about it struck him as odd.

The front door was open. He specifically remembered closing it; his mother had taught him from infancy to close doors behind him. There were lights on inside. In all of the rooms. As a louder, closer rumble of thunder exploded behind him, followed by a flash of lightning that momentarily light up the shadows of the house, Gohan neared the enterance with caution.

_Something bad is about to happen_, his pessimistic side said.

Gohan didn't bother arguing with himself.

The hairs on his tail bristled.

**To be continued......**


	29. CM29

Contradicting Mission

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 29**

Each room, it seemed, found new articles in which to perplex them, or so Joru decided as he tagged along behind his couragous, if not mildly insane, brother. None as peculiar, or nearly as dangerous, as the odd objects labeled "Capsules", but odd and confusing nonetheless (for how could they determine the funtions of a toaster or microwave? It wasn't that they didn't have impliments similar in function in their own Tahch-jin culture, it was just that they were differently shaped, labeled, placed and colored.)

Actually, in all truth, Joru was growing weary of searching the house. Yes, in some ways it was interesting; this was a new culture he was learning about--he and his brother both agreed that, though Gohan was obviously a Saiya-jin by heritage, his way of life was utterly different--but on another, stronger hand, there was only so much to look at. It was a small house. And, though he was in many ways afraid and surprised by Gohan, he wasn't obsessed about him.

Henning was possitively giddy. For nearly half an hour, now, he had been wandering mindlessly through the house, a devious grin spread clear across his face, just running his white hands along the walls, his eyes sparkling. Sitting in the living room, Joru caught glimpses of him as he continued throughout the house, saying quietly to himself, "Dear little Gohan-chan's home.... how delicious...how wonderful....That precious boy." He sounded so fanatical, so, to Joru's perception, _evil_ that his brother's cooing chilled him to the marrow of his bone.

"Henning, dear," Joru said, shivering in his brother's nearly _macabre_ presence, "Please. Please. _Please_!"

It took the other Tahch-jin half a moment more to fall out of his mumblings and turn, finally acknowledging his brother, "Is something wrong, dear?"

"I just...I admite your sudden compulsive obsession with this Saiya-jin boy is frightening me," Joru said, thinking, _you're creeping the hell out of me,_ but only adding aloud, "It's clouding your judgement. I dare to call it borderline _dangerous_!"

Henning, despite his other, less fortunate qualities, made a point to, in the least, acknowledge dangers. He asked, "What dangers are you referring to?"

-------------------------------------------------------

A gargantuan bolt of lightning split the sky, illuminate the small shape of the boy as he came to a stop before his house, the dark shadow of a cloud closly following him, overtaking him as he paused, partially robbing the landscape of half it's light and covering the house with a dark, ominous presence. Each glowing window exclaimed a hidden danger, each strong gust of wind whispered about awaiting horrors.

Gohan, not more than twenty paces from his front door, found himself flooded with devistating hesitation to approach, frustration with his own fear-filled body as well as his limp, and, ultimately, his persistantly, frightfully, growing want to fight. And, perhaps most upsetting for him of all, he found himself incapable of clear rationalization; he couldn't think. Couldn't figure something out; he was sure he was missing something important.And, without the reassurance of reason, he lacked half his confidence, and, for his loss, gained a heady extra helping of inobjectable intimidation.

He was scared.

Feeling almost rageful at himself for his sudden, growing supply of inadequacy and undesirable fear, the slender Saiya-jin boy, feeling smaller than he had in years, could swear he was two steps away from degenerating into a rageful fit, tearing his hair out and, probably, streaking back the way he had come and trying his very best to rearrange Bojack's face. In which process, he would, unaided by a variety of unlikely miracles, eventually find himself suffering the pains of a brutal beating. 

It was with supreme effort and other-worldly restraint that he managed to keep himself from either blasting backward into a well-known danger, or from tearing unwarily, headfirst, into an unknown danger--the one he felt radiating from the house. _His_ house. 

Oddly, the next emotion he had, following closely on the heels of his anger and unwilling lust for violence, was a strong, nagging urge to cry. He just wanted to cry. To just go into his room, climb into his closet, and curl into a little fetal ball of mistery and just let it all go, to release all the pent up fear and rage and humiliation and pain and _memories_ in a harmless wash of silent tears; just as the heavy, dark clouds above desperately wanted to let flow the water within them.

But he knew that such a solution was even more unacceptable than taking everything out--unsuccessfully, sure--on Bojack. If he had a choice, he would never cry again. It was a silent vow. He had already cried--more than once, dammit--during this unpleasant trip. Not again. Not ever. Sorry. No. Just tough it out. 

His tail hung low, dangling limply behind his legs save the last four inches, which twitched in anxious irritation. The wind blew a gust of sand and grit into his eyes and mouth, making him wince. His childhood fear of thunder and lighting sent a chill up his spine. Finally, a ground-shaking clap of thunder that chilled the boy to the core gave the pregnant, overhanging clouds a silent concention. 

In fat, heavy droplets, it began to rain; such a collosal down-pour that the boy found himself drenched in a matter of seconds, his dark hair hammered to his head, his eyelashes dripping, his Saiya-jin uniform clinging to his body. His soggy tail hung lower, dragged down under the weight of the water. This was just perfect.

And so, in such a state of gloom and frustration and dispair, he crossed the last twenty paces, soaked and cold and trembling, his arms wrapped around his shoulders, to enter his breached home, his violated haven, his tainted island, with thoughts darker than the clouds overhead.

-------------------------------------------------------

Henning was begining to regret bringing his brother with him on this little excursion. Through the years, he had grown accustomed to Joru's fanatical cleaning habits, his overbearing sense of worry, and his inceasant need to voice one complaint after another until, in all truth, Henning found himself feeling a very real urge to simply _kill_ him. 

But, he was begining to realize, they had both lived rather sheltered lives. Now that they were venturing into the great outdoors, Joru was coming up with _new_, more irritating quirks--paranoia, for one--that were far less tolerable. Henning, now standing in the tiny bedroom of the tiny house, inspecting the tiny bed, made a point to ignore him. 

"-left vulnerable if we corner ourselves _inside_ the enemy's headquarters-" was something along the lines of what Joru was saying. It didn't matter. Henning was blocking him out, for the most part.

What he was really thinking about was the same thing he had been for the past however many days. That perfect, beautiful, spirited, taunting youth; the unfinished masterpiece, awaiting the finishing blow from a true master of both pain and art. Small, pale, raven-haired, curious, quiet, powerful, humble, proud. Little Saiya-jin. Little boy. Son Gohan.

Henning lovingly folded back the blankets of the bed, running his hands along the silk sheets beneath. This was where the boy slept at night. I was exactly his size. And, if any doubt still remained, the Tahch-jin could _feel_ the boy's soft, powerful presence lingering on the mattress. Precious little boy.

"-would we do, then? Can you tell me? We could die-"

Henning could see it all, now. 

The delicious little Saiya-jin boy would reach the house _after_ the army arrived and, unsuspecting of the Tahch-jin threat awaiting him, would perhaps his way to his living room. There, he would find Henning sitting on the couch, relaxed, his legs crossed. With an order, "Seize him," a sudden wave of sentry, having been hidden in wait for just such an order, would leap forth and apprehend the shocked youth, no doubt having to beat him severely into submission, but specifically _not_ into unconsciousness. Then, the small, helpless form would be delivered to Henning's feet. At his mercy. 

As soon as he had the boy, he would have both his legs broken. Slowly. It would serve a double purpose; both as punishment for running away, as well as to keep it from happening again. The fun of watching as the boy would be pinned to the ground, face-up so Henning could see his expressions of horror and pain, while slowly his legs were bent the wrong way at the knee, would, of coarse, merely be an added perk.

_Then, that captivating boy would be mine._

Henning smiled, self-satisfied, still running his hands along the soft silky sheets of the bed. There would be no hurry to leave, he decided. Why not keep the boy prisoner in his own home? Oh, that would be scrumptious; to chain him to his own bed, his own blood staining the sheets, his screaming and please resonating off these familiar walls; staring up at his own cealing with pain-filled eyes.

The more Henning thought of it, the more he liked it far better than any other plans he previously had install for perfect, endearing little Gohan. He was almost grateful the boy _had_ escaped, for now he had his little haven, his secret, special home, his safe place. The boy's only refuge would be the place he spent his last living days, in absolute agony. And what better place to be destroyed, mentally first, then physically? 

Henning rubbed his hands together in anticipation, running his tongue along his lips in wolf-like hunger as he thought about the perfect, appetizing, exquisite horror he would soon have the opportunity to unleash on the tender young boy.

"Are you listening to me?" Joru's voice broke in, interupting Henning's thoughts of pale trembling flesh, feathery black hair, small gasps of pain and warm red blood.

Henning narrowed his eyes, the tantalizing memories of the boy's previous imprisonment vanishing to the back of his mind, "You're becoming exremely annoying, brother."

Joru's jaw dropped, "What?" It, obviously, wasn't the reply he had been expecting.

Henning leaned against the nightstand by the bed, saying, "You are _no_ fun anymore. You're paranoid, whiny, annoying-"

He didn't even get a change to finish as Joru turned and stormed out of the bedroom, his cape swirling behind him.

_That's no way to talk to your brother_, Henning chastized himself as his sibling vanished from sight. Sure, he teased him, but kin was _kin_, and, somewhere in his dark heart, he _did_ have a certain fondness for Joru that went beyond simple family affection. Joru was the only person who stood at his side willingly and without fear, traveled with him through space, spoke supportively to and of him....

Henning shook his head. Yeah, it was uncalled for, but he would make it up to Joru later._ After_ the breaking of Son Gohan.

-------------------------------------------------------

Dripping on the carpeting, his eyes narrowed, muscles tensed for danger, Gohan made his way through the open door of his house, closing it behind him. Keeping his back pressed to one wall, his damp tail twining tightly around his thigh, he started down the brief hall, pausing to note the new, unfamiliar foot prints on his door mat--the intruder had paused to wipe his feet? Things continued to get peculiar as he passed his coat-and-hat rack, finding two strange hats hung with care. His forehead puckered, he reached the end of the enterance hall.

He stopped the instant he came to his living room.

It was trashed. Thoroughly. The center of the couch sunk clear to the floor, as though some tremendous weight had been set on it; two lamps were broken, little pieces scattered across the carpeting, his television was crushed, one book had been half-mutilated, pages partly shredded, part of the floor seemed to have sunken in; most noticable damage: one wall had a large _hole_ in it, leading to the next room--a small study in which he kept his books. Whatever he had prepared himself for--sudden attack, surprise, instant fight or flight--this was, in no way, it. 

Oddly enough, the damage didn't look as though there had been any rhyme or reason to the vandalism. No one had been looking for anything, and though the level of distruction was intense, it wasn't as though someone had been intentionally trying to destroy his home. It looked, as odd as it sounded, as though some tremendous weight had been dropped from the cealing, crushing everything beneath it.

Though that possibility made no sense, neither did the damage itself. No sense at all. He crossed the room silently, touching the ruined wall with his fingertips. _What's going on, here_?

-------------------------------------------------------

_How dare he_!? Joru stormed loudly out of the bedroom. _How dare he speak to me like that_!? 

The words his brother had said, actually, didn't quite bother him as much as....everything else. Henning had been ignoring him--completely!--and that was something he had never done before. Ever. They had both equally agreed the same day they decided to travel together that, no matter what, they would remain on good terms and tolerate eachother their faults for the sake of peace and happiness. It had been the only condition, and they readily agreed to it.

But now, Henning was ignoring him. Excluding him. Shoving him into the background, just like all the Tahch-jin children had done to him his whole life. Henning had been his only friend and ally. His brother. He had protected Joru from the school bullies, stood up for him, faught to protect his good name. And now..... Joru felt like nothing more than baggage, just being lugged from place to place, not really needed. He felt like he was being ditched. He no longer felt like a part of Henning's life.

It suddenly dawned on him. He was jealous of the attention Son Gohan was getting from his brother. It was an odd, sort of horrible realization, considering what Henning wanted to do to that boy, but it was true, as well. The young Saiya-jin was forever on his dear brother's mind. His only worry. His only concern. Nothing else mattered, not even his close family ties. Being cast aside in such a way hurt horribly for someone like Joru. Total abandonment. 

So what was he to do with such a revelation? Trying to continue keeping the boy out of Henning's reach would only bring forth his brother's wrath. And it wouldn't work, anyway. Henning would hunt that boy forever, until the one day that the youth made his fatal error, getting himself captured and tortured and broken and killed in all the horrible fashions that Henning had been cooking up. It was bound to happen sometime; not even someone with all the power and cunning in the world could run forever from someone with such a one-track mind as Henning. 

So what solution was there?

Son Gohan had to die?

It was a painful conclution to come up with. Joru felt sick to the depths of his stomach when he thought of killing one of the few good people in the universe, of killing a _child_, but..... If it wasn't Son Gohan who died, it would have to be Henning. The gentle Tahch-jin's throat hitched and his eyes watered. For the first time in his life, he had thought of something really horrible. He was thinking of ways to kill his own brother.

He was unable to consider it any further, however, for at that second he rounded the hall to enter the house's living room, where he suddenly found himself face-to-face with Son Gohan, dripping wet--looking rather miserable, actually-- wearing a damp, but new fighting suit. He had one pale hand pressed against the wall that had been destroyed during the capsule fiasco.

Joru's gasp of surprise seriously spooked the boy, who hadn't yet noticed him enter. With disturbingly fast reflexes, the youth vaulted in the opposite direction, loosing little droplets of water in his sudden movement, dropping his narrow body into a tight, defensive crouch. His eyes were absolutely wide-open in what must have been unimaginable shook. He obviously hadn't expected to find a Tahch-jin in his house. Even after he recognized this particular Tahch-jin as the one who had released him from an otherwise horrendous fate, Joru could tell it was no consolation to him. The boy made no movement to relax or appear even a hair less hostile.

The enemy was in his house.

Joru, feeling rather mad at the moment--mad _at_ Gohan, albeit irrationally, for stealing his brother away--felt almost smug. He felt like such a threatening figure right then, that he thought he might understand slightly why Henning enjoyed the look of fear his victims took apon. _I'm your enemy_! He felt like saying. _I'm just as dangerous as Henning_! He was on a roll._ Next time, I'll kill you instead of letting you go_! Yes, he felt sort of like vomiting for even thinking about killing _anyone_, but if he carefully skirted around thinking about the actual _act_, he felt dreadfully dashing and deadly. Downright _lethal_!

It was difficult to maintain the mentalitity, however. Upon looking closer at the boy, though he still managed to look pretty dangerous, there was something about his young face that bothered Joru to no end. He looked fully prepared to fight to the death, but, somewhere in his eyes, he also looked horribly afraid, maybe even terrified; he also looked rather miserable. In some ways, pitiable. Dripping wet, his skin was quite pale; he looked very cold. His tight little fighting stance favored his left leg which, Joru noticed, was heavily bandaged, reminding him of the bloody wound he had seen in such a place during his capture.

It was a wonder he was walking at all, now that he thought about it. That wound had been rather severe.

"What are you doing here?" Joru asked finally. Plan A (to try keeping Son Gohan away from Henning) wouldn't work. But Plan B (to kill Son Gohan before Henning got a chance to) was turning out to be something equally impossible. So what was he supposed to do, then? Was there a Plan C? Joru wanted to bang his fists against the sides of his own head. No, there was no Plan C; besides that, no real thought had gone into A or B. He felt cornered. As ingenius as he was, he was no schemer.

That, saddly, was Henning's job.

"I live here," came the boy's deliberate answer, as though he, himself, hadn't the faintest idea why he was answering.

The situation was so very strange, thought Joru, that he should be holding a conversation this boy--the enemy. So, confused for the most part, he shrugged, nodded and said, "Yes, I know." 

And he continued to study the small boy, in all his lethal, pitiful glory, and, despite himself, it wrenched his heart. From what he knew and had previously felt, this child, Son Gohan, struck him as a living casualty of war. And the more he studied, the more he saw that the boy _wasn't_ perfect like Henning so dedicatedly believed. He was more like some lost, helpless kid, just wanting to find some way to survive this viciously impossible fate before him. He looked weary, desperate, and overly lean from missed meals.

The fact that there was nothing he could do for the boy really did just kill Joru. Every time his eyes met the boy's, it almost stung like an unspoken accusation. The Tahch-jin looked down at the carpeting, feeling ultimately guilty.

Whatever chance there was that something else could have been said, however, was choked off before it had a chance to begin. 

For at that very moment, Joru's heart stopped as he heard the voice of his brother behind him, "Joru, I was wondering something..."

The gentle Tahch-jin jerked his head to look over his shoulder as Henning entered the room, his hands behind his back, his classic smile spread across his face. Joru turned back around to the boy--but blinked in surprise. For Son Gohan was no longer where he had been. He had vanished. Looking left, then right, Joru circled the room in appearant confusion, his brow furrowed, one finger pressed nervously to his mouth. No sign of him. He was gone.

"Joru?" Henning inquired, tilting his head to one side as he watched his brother behave in such a peculiar way.

Joru looked at him, eyes wide, his tongue limp in his mouth. He was completely and utterly speechless. Wherever the boy had vanished to, he had done it soon enough to avoid being spotted by Henning. So now what? Should he tell his brother that Gohan was in the house? Should he with-hold the information? Should he run?

"Are you still mad at me?" Henning asked, put his hands on his hips, "Giving me the silent treatment or something?"

Joru said said nothing, shaking his head in perplexion. 

_What am I going to do?_

-------------------------------------------------------

Gohan could swear he had never moved so fast.

He barely heard the soft footsteps he recognized so thoroughly as Henning before he had _streaked_ across the room, opened the hall closet, and slipped inside, closing the door quickly, quitely behind him. Just as he heard the soft latch of the closet door, his blood froze in his veins as he heard _that_ voice.

"Joru, I was wondering something..."

He didn't breath. He could swear his heart wasn't even beating. 

It was not a walk-in closet he was hiding in. His face was barely half a foot from the door, even with his back pressed against the opposite wall. He felt absolutely trapped. He could feel Henning's chi not more than ten feet away, but felt just millimeters, it seemed, from capture. He had only to make a single sound, and then Death itself would be apon him, greedily sinking its claws into him, never letting go. He knew the chances of escaping a second time were highly unlikely; next to impossible. 

What was he to do? Was there anything he _could_ do? Was there anywhere to run?

He remained absolutely silent and still and listened.

"Are you still mad at me? Giving me the silent treatment or something?" Henning was talking again, speaking to Joru.

Would the Tahch-jin tell, Gohan wondered as sweat beaded along his hair line. He was trembling violently. Would Joru Le'Armont tell Henning just who he saw? Even if Joru didn't say anything, Gohan was positive he could not stay where he was. He could not just stay in that closet, so close to _Henning_, and expect himself to remain safe, or even completely rational.

So the boy began to look frantically around the tiny closet, in search of some highly unlikely form of escape, finding a wall to his left, a wall to his right, a wall behind him, the only door stood, naturally, to his front--through which he would find Henning and many unspeakable horrors he had every intention of avoiding. The closet was way too small. So confining. He felt like Death pressing in around him, wrapping its cold hands around his neck, crushing his ribs. He need to get out of there before he went hystical. It was so closed in. He felt like he couldn't breath; where was the air?! He had to get out!

He silently knelt and ran his hands along the floor, trying to find some way to tear the carpet up from the tackstrip without making any particular amount of noise He stopped, however, when he realized pulling the carpet up would do him no good; beneath he would run into floor boards, beneath which he would find the cement foundation of the capsule house. Blasting or tearing his way through would, without a doubt, cause a loud commotion, thus ruining any tangible chance of escape.

Trapped. He heard Henning talking to Joru again, his voice sending horrifical little jitters down his spine, but couldn't hear what was being said over the pounding of his heart. A droplet of sweat slipped over his temple, trailed down his cheek, then dripped off his chin. He was drenched, he realized, with more than rain water. Amazing, just moments ago he had been freezing; now, he was sweating profusely, burning up, panting in the heat. But he continued to tremble, his hands shaking. 

He felt irrational panic boiling up, he looked around again, expecting some peculiar new form of escape to suddenly appear--to his left: wall, to his right: wall, behind him: wall, in front of him: Door of Death, beneath him: floor, above hime..

His eyes widened. For when he looked up, he saw a small trapdoor. It was a maintanance crawl space, most likely, leading to his dusty attic; a second enterance he hadn't been aware of. Escape. The thought thrilled him. He just might survive. He continued to tremble. Was it too good to be true?

Quietly, his back braced against one hall, his feet pushed against the other, he began to climb upward.

-------------------------------------------------------

"If we have control of the weather," Henning was saying, "Why is it raining outside? I didn't give any order for it to thunder and rain, did you?"

Joru, ever bewildered, answered slowly, hardly thinking, "I imagine... the power we have is not a strictly controlled situation." He continued to look around the room as he spoke, searching for some sign of Gohan--was he even still in the house? "If you want the raining to stop, you could call up the sentries at the base and tell them to stop it; but I assume that when we're not exercizing our control, the weather simply goes about its every day business."

Henning frowned, "Do you think the weather will delay the troops? It's gotten rather dark out."

Joru, unable to worry about something far away when a threat--or was it someone being threatened?--was so close by. So he shook his head, shrugged, and crossed the damaged living room to look outside at the rain. It really was coming down hard now; the sea was churning and foaming in the wild wind, the sand pocked with large dimples where the rain pelted it, while the mud and grass farther from the surf was buried beneath a heavy sheet of water, only a few small sprigs of purple could be visible.

"I said I was sorry," Henning said behind him, mistaking Joru's silence to be anger.

Joru turned and tried to smile, saying, "Hm?"

"What, you're not angry?" Henning asked, mildly surprised; his brother had been known to hold grudges for extended amounts of time. Weeks? Try years.

Joru shrugged again, looking back outside, searching the landscape for the small form of a boy, fleeing off into the weather torn landscape. But, of coarse, he saw nothing. He said, "I was just thinking."

He felt his brother smile behind him, saying bemusedly, "What's rather whimsical...." He drawled off distractedly, and Joru heard him cross the room to the tiny house's enterance. Then he returned, slowly crossing the room. Joru turned to watch him, noting that his brother was hunkered over the ground, walking slowly, until he crossed the room entirely, pausing before the wall that had been ruined by the capsule car. Finally, Henning turned to Joru, asking, "Did you go outside into the rain?"

Joru blinked, "Certainly not."

Henning stood, frozen, his eyes centered on the ground.

"What is it?"

"Someone....has entered the house since it started raining. Look." And then he gestured to the ground, where Joru saw a few little smears of mud, barely visible against the darkly colored carpet. "I can't make out the size or weight, but...." His eyes suddenly grew wide, and, down on all fours, he crawled slowly across the room, following a path invisble to Joru, coming to a stop infront of the small hall closet they had passed when first entering the house. He was breathing heavily. He turned and looked at his brother, saying bewilderedly, "Someone is in the closet."

Joru's eyes widened, so that was where the boy was hiding! He wanted to turn away, to leave the room and take a long, hot bath and devote two or three hours to praying and redeeming his soul. For, if Son Gohan was really in that closet, that meant he was already caught. Vivid memories of the boy's screams of pain and agony as he suffered from Henning's hand whipped through his mind, bringing a bitter taste up his throat. He was going to throw up.

He fastened a hand over his mouth, but held his ground.

Stepping back, one hand on the closet doorknob, Henning secured his feet incase of attack, took a deep breath, then threw the door open.

The closet was empty.

-------------------------------------------------------

Gohan had never been so happy to see his grimy attic; the old furniture, the dusty picture frames, the trunks of old clothes, the filing cabinets full of the doodles he had done when he was younger and the graded papers his mother had insisted on keeping. Room had been scarce in his regular mountain home, so he had readily agreed to keep the upper floor of his capsule house as storage. And it was packed. The crib he had slept in when he was a baby, no-longer-used lamps, rugs, a television set with a broken connection, old clock radios....

He paused.

Television sets and clock radios? He hurried over to the broken TV, his feet padding as quietly as he could manage with a disrupted leg, and, upon turning it around, found that it had an antenna. He needed an antenna for his communicators. With a swift swipe, he broke it off its base, and padded towards the clock radio, discovering it, too, had the desired antenna--which he also removed. Near the regular enterance of the attic--a small fold-down ladder--he found his tool box, which he had carefully returned to the upstairs before leaving his house early that very morning. 

It was amazing how much good luck he could find during such a horrible streak of bad luck.

A few miles away, he felt the approaching army he and Garlic had sensed earlier; he had little doubt that it was Henning's troops. They were coming here. To his house. Once they reached the little house, the boy was quite sure, the chances of escape would lessen greatly.

He began searching the sloping walls of the attic. Would there be a means of escape? Would fate be cruel enough to carry him this far only to...... The thought died, yet in its infant stage, as his eyes fell apon something on the far wall. As difficult as it was, he managed to scramble over the junk in his way, climbing over boxes and stacks of old books, to find what he had been looking for. A hatch, not more than three feet in height, shaped like a long, narrow trapezoid, hinges only on the top to allow it to fold upward. An exit.

Breathing heavily in disbelief, he undid a latch at the bottom, then pushed. The door folded upward smoothly, suddenly allowing the rain to come whipping inward, striking the boy in the face. It was freezing out. Gohan didn't care. He had to get out.

He waded through the junk and dust back to the the tin tool box and antenna he had intention of taking with him, then returned to the blessed opening, leading out into the frigid downpour; the ground on the inside of the attic was already becoming wet. Thinking was becoming hard, as a flighty, bewildered, frantic fluttering took over his mind. Only one thought was clear.

He had to escape.

After a taking a deep breath, attempting to calm his frayed nerves, he turned and took one last look at the attic--seeing the entire house with his mind--before placing the two antenna between his teeth, gripping the tool box firmly in one hand, and climbing quietly outside, into the elements. 

-------------------------------------------------------

The campless camp members, reduced to drifters, were absolutly inarguably miserable as they stood, dripping and cold, in the pelting rain, beating at their heads and shoulders, relentless even to Sunow and his children as they sought worthless shelter amoung the rocks. The wind carried the unmerciful rain into every crevice, every nook, making escape from it impossible. Waiting in anxious irritation for their single missing member, they spoke not a word to one another, nor would they have if they could actually hear eachother over the roar of thunder and lightning and pelting rain.

The character of the foulest mood would be, inarguably, Bojack, who stood, arms crossed, in the very middle of the field, making no pretense to avoid the rain, for where was there to go? His impressive mane of lava hair lay flat against his back, dripping, from the force of the downpour, his bandana pressed down against his head. His eyes were barely slits, his lashes keeping the water out of his eyes, his lips were pressed together in a formidable scowl that few could match. Since recieving the news--via Garlic--that the Tahch-jin had claimed the capsule house (the last known destination of that goddam kid) as their new base, he had gone through first surpise, followed by selfish concern, then irritation, then anger, before finally settling on irrational yet potent hatred for Son Gohan.

He would have been amazed at how talented the boy was at getting himself into trouble if he wasn't too busy thinking of ways to punish him for it. Why was it that they were always _waiting_ for that fucking boy?! Left, however, with little other choice--he would _not_ stoop to looking for the gaki--wait he did, each second that ticked by causing him to dig his fingernails deeper and deeper into his arms. 

And fifty-three minutes after it started raining, return the boy did. Jogged through the mud and water, his soaked hair hanging in limp strands over his eyes, he carried a tin box in one hand, his tail was slung low behind him. His young face was absolutely grim; obviously, he had discovered the hard way that he was now homeless.

Half of Bojack's lip lifted in a snarl. It didn't matter that the boy was uninjured, and thus, no harm had been done. What the Biraju-jin really wanted was an excuse to do damage to the boy himself, to hit him and break his little bones and make him beg for mercy or most of all to be able to kill him. His foul mood was worsening with each second he watched the boy approach, his express dark, his tail hung low behind him. The way the boy's shoulders hung in such defeat only slightly mollified the Biraju-jin's mood

"Son Gohan!" Even Bojack's sensitive hearing barely picked up Sunow's exclamation over the pounding of the heavens. Irritated, he turned his head to a side, watching the Aeesu-jin emerge from whatever little hole he had concealed himself in amoung the rocks to greet the boy, his green tail trailing behind him. 

****

The instant he had scaled down the side of the house and his feet had splashed down into the deep layer of water waiting beneath him, Gohan had been running. 

His feet pounding through deep puddles, water splashing up from beneath his boots as it poured down on him from above, stinging his face and burning his eyes, his one hand clutching the tool box and the two antenna, though he had forgotten he was holding either. He became only aware of the pounding rain and the impact his feet made against the ground, the rhythms, the consistent sounds, the beating of his heart, the throbbing of his leg, the splash of water that erupted beneath him with each frantic step.

He was running away. 

But he found himself unable to escape what was chasing him. Dread. Loneliness. Abandonment. Death. Death had been following him since he had entered that house, sliding its cold fingers up his back at every turn. No, had been following him before that, even, since he arrived on this death-trap of a planet. Even that was inaccurate: Death had been persuing him his whole life, nipping at his heels, killing all who stood in its way.

He knew he should turn and face it, accept his fate, to look it straight in the eye like the warrior he was. But he ran. The lighting flashing overhead only partially lighting his way. Tripping, stumbling, gasping for breath, never looking back for fear of what he might see.

He continued onward in such a state until he found himself running across a familiar field, surrounded by large, rocky boulders. He slowed to a jog and squinted his eyes through the rain when he thought he heard someone call to him.

Presently, he saw Sunow jogging towards him, his face bright, a smile of relief on his lips. The boy could tell, somehow, that Aeesu-jin knew the Tahch-jin had taken over the capsule house. Perhaps Garlic had found out and informed the other ex-camp members. It didn't matter.

Gohan was not in the mood to see any smiling face at the moment, or any faces at all, really. 

"Son Gohan, you're okay!" Sunow greeted, "I was so worried that....well, you know."

Gohan, oddly, found himself incapable of returning the warm greeting, only replying with a sharp, "I'm fine."

The Aeesu-jin wilted before his very eyes, his smile slipping back into the characteristically Aeesu-jin indifference, saying in an also typically Aeesu-jin monotone (with a sad not of disappointment) "Yes, well, it's good to see you're back."

Gohan didn't even meet his eyes as he walked past him. Something inside him told him he should feel guilty, but he didn't. He felt nothing. Nothing mattered right then. The rain was beating his shell of a body numb while the whole situation he was in--homeless, helpless, cold, wet, injured and, yes, scared--numbed his soul.

He made his way to a large rock, set his tin tool box down, carefully placing the antenna and the communicators inside it to protect them from the rain. He then leaned his back against the rock and let his feet slide slowly out from under him until his bottom plopped against the muddy ground.

Though it couldn't have been any later than mid-afternoon, he was more than prepared so spend the rest of the miserable day sitting right there, his head down, until sleep called to him. That's what he really wanted. Sleep. Just make it all go away and relax and maybe dream about something nice for a change...or to at least be allowed to forget the bad dreams before waking.

But plans changed--as they often do--when he opened his eyes to see Bojack's boots standing before him.

And he knew immidiatly that something bad was going to happen.

"I thought you said you were going home," Bojack's malicious voice said somewhere above him, his deep voice growling each word.

He was baiting Gohan, and the boy knew it. He _knew_. But he was in no mood or mental state to play mind games. So he said and did nothing. He made no movement, because he didn't trust himself. He said nothing, because he was afraid of what might come out of his mouth. By saying and doing nothing, giving no response, he was hoping the Biraju-jin would take the hint and leave him alone.

If only things would ever be that easy.

As he tried closing his eyes again, a large blue hand grabbed his upper arm and dragged him to his feet, giving him a rough shake. "Did you hear me?" Bojack asked, his face hardly a inches from the boy's.

"Let go," Gohan said, averting his eyes to the ground while he tried to pry the Biraju-jin's hand from his arm, "Let go of me."

For his efforts, he was jerked forward half a foot, then slammed backwards, banging his head and shoulders against the rock behind him, his mind reeled as he heard Bojack say, "Don't you dare tell me what to do."

This wasn't fair, the boy thought angrily as he continued to try breaking free of Bojack's iron grip, he had done nothing wrong! His head was spinning, but it didn't take more than a second to find the reason the giant was doing this. It was painfully obvious: he was in a bad mood, and wanted to take his anger out on someone. And he had, naturally, hand-picked Gohan. 

It just wasn't fair, and Gohan was in no mood to deal with it. 

So he did something stupid.

Leaning against the rocky wall behind him, he swung both his legs up, bunched them tight against his chest, and commensed with slamming both of his feet into the Biraju-jin's face. Just milliseconds before his boots hit their mark, he realized that by lashing out, he was greatly reducing his chances of escaping this confrontation uninjured.

And just milliseconds _after_ his boots his their mark--allowing him to break free--, he realized that he was very right. 

As another shock of lighning cracked the sky, a ferocious snarl erupted from deep in Bojack's throat as Gohan quickly tried ducking away and into the rock formations, the rain compromising his vision, the mud slipping under his feet. He was gripped by terror.

He didn't even get three feet before the first blow came.

Since the entire Aeesu excursion had started, Bojack had only struck Gohan three times, each time with an open hand. It had smarted greatly, yes, but he had been lucky, for those blows had been nothing compared to the rock-hard _fist_ that plowed into his narrow back just now.

His breath left him on impact, and so stunned was he that he didn't feel his body hit the ground, or his face splatter into the mud. But he heard/felt Bojack closing in behind him, so very, very close. He clawed desperatly at the ground, trying to scramble to his feet and get away. Too late.

The second blow came to the back of his head, sending a blinding flash of white over his sight, brighter than the lightning or the stars above the clouds or the sun itself. In the single second that his body was discoordinated and limp, the Biraju-jin had moved in, grabbing him by the back of his Saiya-jin suit and throwing him against the rock wall once again. 

Gohan could do little more than stagger a few feet before the third blow backhanded him across the face, sending him reeling against the rockwall for support. If he had any hope of gaining his senses and escaping, it soon vanishes as yet more fists rained down apon him, buried themselves in his flesh, each time driving him backward against the harsh, unforgiving rock formation behind him. 

As he tasted blood and rain water in his mouth, he wondered silently to himself, momentarily blocking out the pounding of those mighty fists against his tiny frame_, Why did I come back?_ And as sad as the answer was, he knew why: he had no where else to go. 

He slid inexorably toward the muddy ground and, he supposed, toward death.

Bojack grabbed him by his hair, held him up agaist the rockwall with one hand, and, his other hand still free, continued to hit him. Gohan lost count of the number of times he was struck as he lost the ability to distinguish each new pain from the myriad old pains of which afflicted him, and just as consciousness seemed it, too, was going to leave him he was released.

The instant he hit the ground his legs were tight against his chest and his face was pressed inbetween his knees; his arms were crossed protectively over his head, his tail curled up between his legs. 

Bojack stood above the curled up boy, a smile curling his lips as he surveyed the bruises already rising along the boy's arms. Such a little kid. And yet, this little kid had _killed_ him. Oh, how he hated Son Gohan.

He knealed in front of the boy, looking closer at the purple swellings rising on his arms; he had been gleefully brutal, yes, but, knowing how vital this little package was, he had also been careful, making sure no bones had been broken, or any other serious damages inflicted.... or so he was pretty sure.

He grabbed a hold of the boy's raven hair and jerked his head up so he could see his face, inspecting the job he had done as the heavy droplets of rain struck his forehead and cheeks, clinging to his lashes. His lip was split and a dark bruise was forming beneath one of his eyes. A trail of blood was running from his nose and the corner of his mouth, already partially washed away by the steady flow of water from the heavens, but neither were serious. Looking at the damn bozu's face, Bojack felt rather proud; he could do this kind of damage and still not have to worry about dying. 

"You're so stupid," he said thinly, tightening his grip on the boy's hair, "I warned you what I would do if you ever attacked me again, didn't I? And you got off lucky. If this ever happens again-" He brought his face in so close to the boys that he could feel the splashes of the raindrops as they struck his pale skin, "-I won't be so gentle." He finally released the boy's hair. "Do you understand?" When he made no move to answer Bojack struck him with an open hand before repeating, "Do you understand?" He got a small nod in reply, the boy's wide eyes looked surprisingly hollow, and in them the Biraju-jin was irritated to find not a trace of fear.

The boy wasn't really there at the moment. 

What a waste; he could have had a lot more fun.

Finally, he stood, shaking his cape to rid it of the raindrops clinging to it, and he departed from Gohan's company. Ten minutes after he left, the boy scooted his small body into a crevice between to larg boulders, where he curled himself into a tight little ball, gripping his tail in both hands in an attempt to comfort himself. He didn't want anyone to see him. He was trembling. And he hurt. 

What hurt more, though, was that he had been completely and utterly unable to fight back.

A few tear drops escaped from under his tightly closed eyelids, hidden by the rain that found him, even tucked away in his little crack, as he began to realize just how very helpless he was, even amoung "allies". If it ever came down to dying, he wouldn't have to worry about the enemies, Heng or Henning or Backlash or any other sect of Aeesu-jin. Bojack would kill him first. And as he had learned from past expiriances with the mighty Biraju-jin, it would not be a quick death.

He suddenly remembered fighting Heng's men, just before being captured by Henning. They had said, he recalled, that if he were to surrender, he would get a swift, painless death.

Sitting miserably, soaking wet, in a cramped little crevice between rocks, pinching his bleeding nose and crying ever so gently, he wished he'd taken them up on that offer.

**To be continued......**


	30. CM30

Contradicting Mission

I only now was able to upload on ffn's less-than-reliable account; appologies to all the readers who didn't get a chance to read this from my website.

-------------------------------------

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 30**

There wasn't a member of the camp that didn't witness the violent exchange between Gohan and Bojack, and not one of them didn't flinch, albeit ever-so-slightly, at least once during the beating, as small cries of pain and the sound of bone against flesh rang out, even over the overhead roar of thunder and rain.

Whilst watching the contemptable, brutal act, Sunow had more than once almost said something, had almost run forward to try pulling the blue giant off the boy, or to plead for him to stop or do _something_ about it. But he just stood, transfixed, and watched, holding his daughter's face against his chest to hide the sight from her. He tasted vomit in the back of his mouth. He felt sickened. But he did nothing. He stood and watched, a putrid taste in his mouth, tightly hugging tiny Eesei to his body, and he made no move to stop it.

His fear of what Bojack might do to him, or worse, his children, held him steadily back.

Bojack had never mentioned needing either Sunow or his young, and the parental Aeesu-jin was sure he would have no qualms with killing the three of them. Sunow had already lost nearly everything: his home, his job, his old _life_; he was not going to risk losing his children, as well, for the sake of a Saiya-jin, no matter now kind and sweet the boy was. And besides, hadn't the blue giant said more than once that he needed the boy _alive_. Though Sunow didn't know exactly why, he told himself that, technically, Gohan's life wasn't really in _danger_.

Though Sunow was sure staying out of it _was_ the best idea, it still made him sick.

No one should hit a child like that.

Either way, he stood by and watched, even after Bojack finally stopped hitting the small form under him. And watched as the boy wedged himself half-out of sight into a small crevice between two boulders, his little body curled tightly upon itself, his bloody face buried in his arms.

He wanted to run to the boy, to comfort him, aid him, help in whatever way he could, but _still_ he feared drawing attention from Bojack. And when the blue giant turned to face Sunow, wiping his bloody knuckles against his cape, daring him to say something, the Aeesu-jin father kept silent.

The Biraju-jin looking one last time at the half-visible boy, looking so small, humbled and subdued from the ordeal, and gave a satisfied smile, obviously quite pleased with what he had done. He turned his huge frame away from them all, then, and walked away, vanishing amoung the boulders. Surely he was not going far.

With the deafening patter of the rain, a heavy silence filled the air.

Eesei was sobbing.

She hadn't seen even half of it before Sunow had covered her eyes. But she heard it. Had heard the sound of fists striking flesh. And, with even her minimal, inborn warrior instincts, she knew what the sound was. And that knowledge, rather than the icy water pouring down on her and her father, chilled her tiny reptilian body.

She clung to her father, her tail wrapped so tightly around him that he could hardly breath, her limited vocaularly reduced to frantic blubberings, the only audible words being, "Make him stop, Papa, please, please make him stop.... He's hurting Gohan...."

And she continued to say it over and over again, betwix strings of wails and incomprehensible words, even after Bojack _had_ stopped and left. She was inconsolable. Sunow could do no more than hold her tight, his ruby eyes unfocused, his brow creased, his delicate mouth gaping.

Feeling something bump against his shoulder, he was partially shaken from his daze to find Forester standing next to him, his young eyes haunted, his face pale. The young Aeesu-jin boy tentatively leaned against his father, his tail slipping around Sunow's in search of comfort. Putting an arm around his son, the Aeesu-jin father tried his best to let him know it was okay. His son was trembling.

What he didn't know was that Forester was trembling with rage. Narrowing his young eyes in the direction Bojack had vanished, he spoke with absolute venom in his tone, "I hate him. I want him to die. I swear. I hate him more than anything in the entire universe."

And so, Sunow stood, listening to his daughter plead for him to help Gohan, and listening to his son snarl words of loathing, all the while looking at that little crevice the Saiya-jin boy had wedged himself in, until, finally, he could stand no more. So he sunk to his knees and said to himself more than Eesei or Forester, "We couldn't have stopped him. Son Gohan is so much stronger than I, but even _he_ was helpless. There was nothing any of us could have done." But not a single word of it reached his heart.

He held his children tightly in the rain, and tried his best to comfort them with his body.

**

His back pressed against cold stone, Gohan didn't move for a very long time.

Keeping his legs pressed tightly to his chest, he buried his face in his inner elbows, his arms crossed over his head. He kept his tail strung tightly around his ankles, refusing to allow it to move. Absently, his fingers combed through his wet, tangled hair, ever so slowly; methodically working out the tangles and bits of mud, trying to comfort himself since there was no one else to do it, giving him at least some mindless chore to put his energy to.

He was desperate to keep his mind idle long enough to hide the brunt of this unpleasant memory from his mind. It never worked. The memories always found their way to surface again. Despite, he tried anyway.

He couldn't stand it. Couldn't stand his inability to defend himself. He hated Bojack, but more, he hated himself. Hated himself for _letting_ Bojack hit him. Surely there had been someway to avoid it. Perhaps if he hadn't faught back in the begining, if he hadn't kicked him in the face, then he could have escaped. He had seen it coming in advance, had _known_ that the Biraju-jin was intending to hurt him, why, _why _hadn't he done anything? Why hadn't he just acknowledged Bojack? Couldn't he have done that? Couldn't he have just played along and been a good boy and let the Biraju-jin just _think_ he was in control?

He felt so stupid.

His pains never ending, for he also knew the entire camp had been watching. Perhaps the beating wouldn't have bothered himself so much if it had been only between him and Bojack, but for something like that to happen in front of everyone? Tears slid down his face, hidden by the pouring rain, and vanished into the sleeve of his body suit. His tail eased off his ankles and slid up between his legs in an uncontrollable gesture of humiliation. He had been tried, and proven weak, right infront of Sunow and his family and, even more humiliating, in front of Freeza and Garlic. He couldn't stand it, but there was nothing he could do.

And so he cried, running his hands through his hair, never uttering a sound, the salty tears burning his skin, crying not because of the pain, but because the helplessness. Incapable of defending himself. Worthless and without hope and ultimatly a burden that was only alive because Bojack had restrained himself. He wished Bojack _had_ just killed him, for then he wouldn't have to be here, feeling everyone, subtly, watching him as he gave way to emotion. And still his fingers detangled his hair, rhythimcally, gently removing knots. He didn't want anyone to look him, didn't want anyone to know he was so bothered, but just _couldn't_ pretend it had never happened, couldn't shrug if off and turn the other cheek.

He just wished he could go some place far far away where no one could see him, but was even more afraid that if he tried to leave, Bojack would stop him and hurt him further.

Slowly, one dark eye glanced up from its hiding place amoungst his arms, a finger momentarily caught in a snarl or wet hair, and, in the absense of motion, his mind said, _You're so pethetic. Get up. Climb out of your little hole and do something._

But then he twisted his hand and the tangle gave, finger again freed, and he continued to aimlessly comb through his feathery hair, and he slowly grew quieted inside. With a heavy sight, he relinquished his grooming and leaned his head back against the rocks behind him, and closed his eyes, wincing as some unknown bruise was brushed against. _I don't want to get up. I don't want to do anything but sleep._

The rain found him, then, by way of a gusting wind, splattering fat little raindrops across his face, so cold and harsh. With a wince, he opened his eyes, slowly looking at his surroundings; mud, rock and cold water. A dismal sky and a sore body. He was so cold his teeth were chattering. His soaked tail remained twined, miserably, between his legs. _You won't sleep here. Not like this. Quit fooling yourself. Get up. Get revenge._

_Revenge?_ He snorted distastefully, _On who?_

_Bojack. Kill him. Just kill him._

He almost started laughing at the thought. But then he actually considered it. Then he added in the repercussions that would inevitably result. In light of what had just happened, attempting vengence would, at any perspective, be a very rash and altogether moronic thing to attempt.

He ran both hands over his head slowly, starting with the back of the scalp and probed along through his hair, locating the fevered bruises that hid beneath his thick locks and reached, as his fingers and wincing skin informed him, down across his forhead and welled up along his cheek bones. He hissed sharply when he pressed too hard against the skin by his left eye, which begining to swell shut. His nose, though it had stopped bleeding, felt raw and sore. Tenderly, he traced the split that ran down his lower lip, tasting the saltiness of it with a flick of his tongue.

And all of this had been for hitting Bojack just once, and in self defence.

He went on to think of what would happen to him if he actually _attacked_ the Biraju-jin, and perhaps even managed to hurt him.... _I'd be killed. Or worse._

He took hold of his tail and began to smooth the damp hairs down with his thumbs, taking little comfort in the way the gentle touch sent warm ripples up his spine.

He tried his best to ignore the other side of the argument when it said, _Perhaps it's better to die._

He felt so selfish for thinking it; to skirt his mission--and thus failing his given task and everyone one Earth unknowingly depending on his success-- that his face darkened. He released his tail to let it curl around his thigh. He felt like such a coward. _That's not acceptable and you know it._

Which left him back at square one. He had no clue where to go from here, or what was going on, he had nothing but the clothes on his back and a measly box of tools and a group of allies that would kill him if given the chance, and would hit him if they knew they could get away with it.

A shudder of dread took him as he began to realize that each passing second found him creeping closer to the point where he just wouldn't be able to do it anymore. Wouldn't be able to pull himself back out of of these black, mental mucks he kept staggering into. The walls were pressing in and he just wasn't bouncing back like he used to, each disappointment, each horror he went through, took a chunk out of him, out of his self-esteem and out of his courage and out of his confidence, leaving more and more room for older, deeper mental scars to surface.

He'd thought more about his father in the past week than he had in the past year before that, and each time hurt his heart more and more, and each time he remembered clearer and more distinctly every detail that led up to his father's death.

He lowered his head to his knees again.

He just couldn't do it anymore.

He was slipping out of himself, going somewhere beyond conscious thought, with nothing strong enough to hold him down, until one voice or other in his mind said, _No, coward, you aren't going to take the easy way out. _Grabbing fistfulls of his hair, shoving his tender nose against his knees until it began to bleed again, he internally yelled at himself, _Think, baka, think_!

He forcefully shoved thoughts into alignment, trying to put together some pretense of rationality, desperatly trying to come up with some way to distract himself from reality. Randomly, he began going over what he knew. The facts: he was wet--_no, no, better facts, c'mon, idiot, think--_, he was homeless--_you can do better than that_--he was homeless _because_ Henning had taken over his capsule house--_follow this, I have a feeling_...

He balled his fists at his temples, tapping his knuckles against his head. Henning and Joru were at his home, with so many men that not even _Bojack_ would be able to fight them all. No doubt the army was the combination of every footsoldier, every sentry, every secretary both Henning and Joru had, and they stood a formidable wall between him and his place of rest and safety.

_You're thinking about your house too much. There's something bigger here, can't you feel it? Now think, dummy, you're missing something!_

The Tahch-jin and _all_ their men were camped around his capsule house which ment.......

His head jerked up from his knees, eyes wide. _Which means there's no one at the Tahch-jin fortress._

_Or at least not as many_, his rational side quickly added, as though attempting to cancel out the possitive swing he was taking.

But, despite his own mental cautions to not get too excited, his broken wings of hope were painfully mending once again, and with this new train of thought, his thoroughly broken and beaten confidence staggered weakly back to its feet. The past few hours of miserable self-contempt were half-shoved off his mental table and into that dark little corner where he kept all the other undelt-with negative feelings and memories, and on top of that he threw his physical pains, which he dismissed from his concern.

The Plan could still work, then. He began moving the details of it around to fit the new situation, grateful to be distracted from his negated mood and doing something productive, even if his mind was acting. Some fleeting notion suggested he deal and cope with what had happened between him and Bojack first, to get rid of it now, while it was fresh, rather than let it sit inside him and fester, but some other, stronger part of him quickly silenced it, promising himself that he would do it later.

This were far more important things to worry about right now.

His muscles sore--he had been curled in that cramped little corner for hours--and his joints stiff; his entire upper body mottled with deep, dark bruises hidden under his body suit and across his face, he crawled out into the open, out into the heaving rain that made the submerged ground look as though it were boiling. His mind was now blank but for the hope that he would soon end this.

He _needed_ this. Needed it to end soon, so soon. He was barely fighting that panic that said, _I just can't take this anymore_. The sudden anticipation that he might soon be home countered his self-loathing with such ferocity that he was near hysterics.

He had to finish those communicators.

**

It had been four hours and thirty-two minutes, precisely, that Gohan had remained hidden between those two boulders. Garlic had kept track of it down to the second.

True, he hadn't been particularly disturbed by the violent treatment the bozu had endured from the angry giant--he could feel by the boy's desolate but stable chi that he was in no danger of dying, and thus it was beyond the gremlin's concern--but it had indeed kept his thorough attention. He wasn't particularly happy about it, either, if not for any other reason that he was jealous it hadn't been _him_ hitting the boy's tender face.

Still, something seemed...rather cheap about it. Though, being a demon himself, it wasn't exactly his place to decide what was fair and what wasn't; attacking that stupid boy in the condition he was in... Garlic's scowl deepened, heavy droplets of rain dripping from his overhanging brow. Had he been in Bojack's position, impossibly stronger than the gaki, he would have established his dominance _first thing_, the instant they landed on the planet. To make clear just who the boss was. By not doing so, the Biraju-jin had left the boy to give himself false hope that he was safe, which had caused them the lot of them a world of testy confrontations.

But that was just Garlic's oppinion, and he had long decided to remain neutral to the going ons amoung the camp members. Sticking near enough to enlist the safety-in-numbers form of protection (his painful capture by the Aeesu-jin had been a good aid in displaying just how out-classed he really was), but expressing his views... He had better things to do. Like enjoy _not_ being hurt.

Movement drew his attention, and he blinked at the abrupt change in Son Gohan's chi, noting the boy as he stiffly emerged from his little crevice, his face concealed by his wild bangs, bogged down under the weight of the water clinging to them. Even then, the gremlin could easily make out the purple and blue swellings on his face, the shock of bright red sliding down his chin.

The gremlin felt indifferent. Were he able, and with the power, he could have found some enjoyment in kicking the kid around, but, uncomfortably aware of his own power inadequecies, his normal willing towards violence was left somewhat subdued. He was too damn upset to feel much of anything than a dark loathing toward _everyone_.

Watching the boy, wincing at every movement he made, his tail pressed tight around his thigh, as he sat down, pulling the small tin box he brought back with him into his lap, Garlic was at least entertained. Watching the trouble-making boy behave in such a sullen, humbled manner _did_ serve to make him feel mildly smug.

Damn kid. Send Garlic Junior into the Dead Zone, will you.....

-------------------------------------

Henning and Joru Le'Armont stood, side by side, in the attic of the capsule house, looking out the open hatch at the pouring rain, not particularly noticing the swarming mass of Aeesu-jin and other such brutes as they struggled to erect tents around the new Tahch-jin base, moisture. Both of their mouths were left unchecked, openly gaping.

Both decided, as they searched the ground sitting under a good inch of water, hovering above which hung a steel gray sky pouring forth the waters of heaven, that Son Gohan was unnaturally crafty.

Joru was near panic at the amount of dust and grime that surrounded him. He held his robes high above his knees, praying they wouldn't get dirty, while his eyes looked with intimidation at dust bunnies that lurked threateningly just beneat the old furniture.

He turned to his brother, and asked, his voice a few ochaves higher than usual, "What do we do, now?"

Henning sighed deeply, closed his eyes and gave a thoughtful shake of his head, "Well, the chance of catching little Gohan-chan by surprise in his own home is ruined. Damn, that would have been so very sweet. I guess our only option, now, is to wait for the storm to break, then send a few dozen platoons out to _search_ for the boy."

Joru wilted internally, almost dropping the robes gathered in his arms. He knew Henning wouldn't abandon the search for the boy by the minor set back, but, being the hopeless optimist he was, he had still tried to mentally will his brother to give up. He almost opened his mouth to suggest it, but stopped before his vocals could make a sound. He didn't want to draw any attention to himself; his encounter with the boy had been, so far, over looked. He wanted to keep it that way.

Henning closed the hatch and turned away from it, his head hung low in disappointment, "Come along, now, Joru. Let's get back downstairs."

The gentler Tahch-jin followed without question, happy, at least, to be able to leave this hellishly dirty place.

-------------------------------------

Completing the communicators--attaching the recovered antenna--proved an extremely difficult task, Gohan discovered. He had made a crude shelter from the rain by stacking boulders and rocks atop one another to make a shallow cave, but found that it was too dark, with the sun blocked by the clouds, to perform the precise, delicate work ahead. He fought the tantalizing despair, hanging so persistantly on the edge of his consciousness, as he found himself forced to hunch over and use his own body to shelter his work from the pouring rain.

But, his thoughts scrambled and unavoidably numb with supression of all things bad in his mind--which was pretty much everything--he found himself constantly staring at his work, his eyes glazed, completely confused about what to do next, scrambling at concepts he could normally recite in his sleep. And even then, when he knew what he had to do, his hands were shaking (from frayed nerves more-so than the cold) so hard he could barely hold the tools still enough to manipulate.

As he worked, he suddenly found himself rocking back and forth. And he was whistling.Whistling through his split lips. Eventually he recognized the tune as the silly little song he'd made up when he was five. The tune that he had taught Haiya Dragon to dance to. The tune he had whistled to Piccolo one fine summer day over a waterfall. The tune that ended up turning the losing battle between Earth and the astranged Nameksei-jin Slug into a victory. He had completely forgotten about that tune till now, hadn't whistled at all for the past eight years, since learning that whistling hurt Piccolo-san's sensitive hearing

He found it somehow comforting, now, though. For that tune, and the memories that came with it, was something he'd brought with him from Earth, and unlike his capsule house, no one, not Henning, not Bojack, not Heng, _no one_ could take it from him unless they ripped him open and literally picked it out of his brain. It felt good to have something he knew no one could take away from him. As he whistled, louder and with more enthusiasm, he found himself working better, his hands becoming steadier, his mind finding a better path to calculate what his tools were doing, and giving him a brighter mood as he recalled the blissful hours he'd spent teaching little Haiya Dragon how to do the dance routine he had childishly made up.

The memory was pure gold.

His wet, bedragged tail swipped back and for behind him, keeping beat.

In such a manner, time passed. By early evening, the rain finally slowed to a drizzel. By the time the sun set--unseen through the still thick clouds--and darkness took hold of the land, the celestial flood gates finally closed, and the rain stopped.

And in the last waning minutes of daylight, Gohan set both communicators carefully into his tin tool box, followed by the tools he had used. He was, finally, done.

Stiffly, he crawled into the shallow cave he had made, unmindful now of the darkness, and curled up tightly to keep his still wet body warm, his tail twisting around the front of his knees until he wrapped both his hands around it, stroking it gently with his thumbs, the tip tickling against his nose. He was concerned he would lay there in the cold wet dark for hours. Worried his mind would wage such bloody war that he would be awake all night, worrying and fretting and _hating_ and....

And then he fell asleep.

-------------------------------------

The morning sun pulled the moisture up from the ground to create a thick, humid fog. Clinging to the ground in eerie whisps of untangible moisture, it was difficult to distinguish details at a distance of five feet or more. Within fifteen feet, an object simply disappeared from view in the hazy air.

Gohan closed his eyes a few seconds after opening them, unsure and uncaring if the fog was a good thing or bad. It took him a moment or two to remember where he was, then a moment more to remember why his body ached. He curled up tighter, squeezing his eyes shut, as the urge to never move again tempted him. To let himself remain there and let starvation sink in until he withered away and died. To not have to get up and face Bojack and not have to face Sunow and not have to face Henning or just not have to face planet Aeesu, his situation, his reality, or his life.

He was tired of trying. Tired of striving against the bitter fate that was so determined to make sure he was never able to be happy. He was just ready to let it all go. He almost started crying again, but his last mutilated shreds of dignity refused to allow him to.

He attempted to reassure himself that things would improve. The plan would still work, wouldn't it? The communicators were finished. The Tahch-jin fort was unprotected, virtually waiting to be infiltrated... He turned his face from the thought, disliking the pleading edge it was taking. _It'll fail. None of my plans work_. He was too mentally weary and physically sore to argue, so he allowed pessimism to take his hand and blindly lead him as coasted downward on a bobsled of hopeless thoughts.

So he remained, the side of his face pressed into the dirt under his head, unmoving. His eyes closed. His stomach aching. Unable to manage anything but the most dismal of thoughts.

And time continued to pass, as time is known to do, slowly but steadily. The sun continued to rise, burning away the fog and transforming the chilly pre-dawn into a heavily humid morning, finding all who had ventured forth from the Underground--from the Tahch-jin and their collosal army, down to the cowed Saiya-jin boy, curled in his shallow cave--with a thin layer of perspiration atop their flesh.

Gohan wished it were still raining. At least then it wasn't so hot.

Going back to sleep was looking bleak, and his mind was starting in with the, _Get up and do something, baka_ routine, where both sides of the argument were yelling at eachother, both agreeing that he really should get up, but neither quite willing to force him to. His body insisted that he not move, and, on the physical level, that was the ultimate decision.

He got his mind caught-up with the thought of starvation, a subject he was becoming increasingly aware of each second, as his stomach pulsed and twisted in his gut, and his mouth tasted like bile, then went into spells of sudden mass over-production of saliva, as though he had somehow tricked himself into believing he was eating. He soon found that thinking about it was not the best thing to do.

His problem: he didn't _know_ what the best thing to do was. Part of him insisted that getting up would improve everything, his mood, his pain-wreaked body, his hopeless situation.... But the other part argued that fate had it in for him, and would find some way or other to make him miserable, assuring him it would be better to just roll over and die now, instead of having to suffer the new agonies the day was sure to present.

A questioning hand on his shoulder decided for him.

He jumped, throwing himself away from the touch, slamming his back against the stones behind him, his pupils shrinking to pin-dots, his chi automatically raising, both hands raised to defend himself.

Eesei sat before him, unaware and unafraid of how close Gohan had come to instincively killing her. She studied him with concerned, ruby eyes, and, as the two looked at eachother, both mildly bewildered, her bottom lip began to tremble.

"You're hurt," she said, almost accusingly, as though by saying it, the "hurt" would feel bad and go away.

Gohan could only stare at her, his jaw slack, until finally he spoke, "Yeah. I am." Then, automatically added as tears began to well up in her big, worried eyes, "But don't worry. I'll be okay. See?" And, just to prove how swell he was, he stood up, raising his arms over his head and attempting a smile, "It doesn't hurt at all." He hoped he was doing a good job of hiding that it really _did_ hurt.

The tiny Aeesu-jin girl, her lip still protruding, swallowed her tears, and stood up, too. She raised her arms in the classic "hold me" style, and Gohan found himself reminded of his own little brother, who had taken such a pose too many times to count, squeeling, "Hol' me, ni-chan!" Little Goten had sometimes been the only one alive capable of dragging him out of the dark moods he had frequented into the first year after his father's death.

The Saiya-jin boy found a small ray of light in his life--not enough, but something--, as he stooped, hiding the grimace the movement caused, and scooped the tiny Eesei up, swinging her around to ride on his back, her tail twisting around his abdomen, and finally ventured out of the cave and into the world.

He wasn't smiling, but, his half-dead optimism whispered, at least he was up, right?

**

Sunow awoke to two immidiate realizations. A.) The sweltering, humid heat was the hottest, most uncomfortable feeling he had ever felt, which in, turn introduced him to the tangy smell of his own sweat. B.) His precious Eesei was no longer curled up on his chest.

The latter was instantly a concern, the former only mild annoyance.

He sat up immidiatly, a tickle of panic rising in his throat as he searched left and right. Forester was still curled not far from him, a little green Aeesu-jin ball, his thick tail covering his body and face from the morning sun, already beating down on them with imense heat.

Sunow stood up, a new kind of worry-sweat rising under his arms and long his back, until he saw Gohan walking toward him, Eesei contentedly riding on his back. But his concern for his daughter stopped there, replaced with an even greater concern for the Saiya-jin boy bearing her.

He hurried forward saying almost harshly, "Eesei, you really shouldn't bother Son Gohan-"

"It's okay." The boy quickly said. Still, he turned for Sunow to gratefully remove the burden from his back.

The father cradled his daughter as she began to say, "Gohan's okay! He's not hurt, he says. He's just fine. See? Look, he's okay! You were real worried, huh, Papa? You dun' have to worry." She lifted her tiny chin in such a way that said 'silly you. I knew he was okay all along. Honest.'

"I can see that he's okay," Sunow said with a stressed smile, then hesitated a moment before setting her down and saying, "Why don't you go wake up your brother, hm?"

She gave him a heart-meltingly bright smile and chiruped a "'Kay!" before running toward her dozing sibling in a child-like gait.

Sunow turned back to Gohan, now that he had a chance to talk to him alone, about to ask, "And how are you _really_ feeling?" but didn't even finish the first word before he stopped. The boy wasn't looking at him. Wasn't looking at anything, really, except maybe the ground beneath his feet. His head cast down, his speratic tufts of wild hair skewing his eyes visibility. He must have used every amount of the cheer in his body to assure Eesei, because he looked absolutely hollow, save for maybe a few scraps of some hopeless emotion.

The Aeesu-jin knew this much: despite the insistance he must have offered his tiny daughter, he was not 'okay'. Not okay at all.

"You were whistling yesterday?" Sunow said instead of inquiring about the boy's well-fare.

Gohan's reply was mumbled, and he did not meet the other's eyes as he said, "Yeah." He turned his head to the side, raising his eyes a moment and studying the rocky cliffs before losing whatever ambition that had caused the movement. His gaze slowly fell back to the ground.

"It was a nice tune. Very cheerful."

"I just made it up. When I was little." The boy said dismissively.

"Oh." The Aeesu-jin said, unable to come up with a better reply. "Well, I'll leave you be. You seemed rather busy yesterday and I don't want to keep you." He turned to go.

"Sunow-san?" The boy said, causing the other to turn back, "I'm really sorry. I don't want to be difficult. I just...." He trailed off, but didn't try to pick his sentence back up. He looked as though each second caught him shrinking, growing smaller and weaker, wilting.

"Gohan," Sunow said, putting his hands on either of the boy's shoulder. He felt the small frame tense, as though he expected to be hurt. His tail bristled, sending the hairs on it to stand attentive in sharp spikes. But slowly, Gohan looked up, seeming almost hesitant to allow anyone to see his face.

And when Sunow _did_ see his face, he was pretty sure he knew why.

The boy obviously wouldn't want anyone to think he was bothered by what had happened yesterday with Bojack. That the boy just wanted everyone to forget what happened, to not mention it and just pretend that nothing had changed. But, when he lifted his head, raising his hair off his face, it was impossible to deny the incident. Battered and bruised, the signs of a brutal beating were indisputable; through the nights worth of sleep, and the use of incredible Saiya-jin healing, his eye was no longer swollen shut, but, for its credit, a deep purple bruise still welled beneath it, making his eyes look even larger and more hollow.

Sunow was begining to feel nausious once again.

The horror he felt must have been easily visible on his face, for Gohan quickly lowered his face again, shaking his head to quickly re-cast himself behind a veil of thick locks.

"Oh, kami, Son Gohan....."

The boy shrugged the Aeesu-jin's hands off his shoulders, saying in a hardly audible whisper, "I'm fine."

"Wait," Sunow said, as the boy began to leave, forcing his voice to sound sharp. Gohan stopped, not turning back around. "Do you still have a plan? Is there any way possible to still win?"

The boy almost seemed as though he wasn't going to answer, remained still and silent for a long while in thought. Finally, he said, "I have. There is. I don't know if it will work, though."

"Is there _anything_ I can do?" Sunow asked, "There must be something."

Again a long pause, allowing the Aeesu-jin to study his narrow shoulders and back, overly-lean from his meagre diet. The boy then turned, raising his head and, finally making eye contact, "You still want to do things for me? Even though I've ruined your life, made you have to leave your home and your people and-"

"Yes." The Aeesu-jin said without a second thought. He added, "Yes," again after a pause, proving that he had actually thought about it, and still agreed with his answer.

The boy didn't lower his bruised face as he turned completely to face Sunow. His head was tilted at an angle, as though confused, his eyes searching the Aeesu-jin's for any doubts. His cracked his lips open in a fragile smile, and said, "I really could use some help."

Sunow smiled, "Just tell me what I need to do."

**To be continued......**


	31. CM31

Untitled Normal Page

The scene quoted in this part is using the translations from Viz Comic's DragonBall Z, Part Two, Number 12. (My favorite translation of the scene aside from it's original Japanese diologue.)

------------------------

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 31**

"My computer hacking?" Sunow was saying, "Well, I know _how_ to break into a computer system....."

Another question was posed.

"Saddly," came Sunow's response, "I opted out of combat training. Beyond usual Aeesu-jin instincts and natural physical strength, I'm afraid I'm pretty impotent."

A third question.

"Well I _was_ a...spy," Sunow said, lifting half a lip at the particular word, "I've had my fair share of sneaking around. Yeah, I can avoid being seen..."

Gohan's inquiries probably seemed quite random, shot off one after another as he wondered over and over if trying was worth the effort. The answers weren't particularly reassuring. He was hoping for more...confidence. Assurance. 

"Son Gohan, I don't understand what you're getting at. Please, you have to tell me what you want me to do in order for me to help you."

The boy sighed, unable to explain that he was _afraid_ to voice his plan, for each time he tried to mentally put it into words, it sounded even more choppy and overly-hopeful--depending too much on the grace of good luck--than he could ever see it if it stayed strictly to himself. That speaking it aloud would not only jinx it, but would prove to the both of them that it was doomed to failure.

His fragile confidence was trembling with exhaustion by simply holding up the almost unbearable weight of humiliation and helplessness. The next blow it sustained was destined to be mortal.

He sighed and shook his head, running his finger idly over the scar on his cheek, his tail hanging limp behind him save the last four inches, which curled to point sky-ward. "I _can't_ tell you yet. Please, just give me a few more hours; I'll tell you today, I promise." His hand fell from his face to hang useless at his side, "I'm just not ready yet."

Sunow curled up half of his mouth in a weary smile, "Alright. But remember, you promised to tell me. Today."

The boy nodded, lowering his head slightly, hiding his face behind his hair. He felt embarassed, completely aware his fear of voicing his plan was irrational. He put a hand to his sides, becoming once again aware--with due internal pain--that he hadn't eaten since the early morning before. He was missing too many meals. His stomach had long since gone from merely 'flat' to almost non-existent. His entire body mass consisted, quite literally, of skin, muscle and bone. 

He couldn't keep going like this. 

Meeting Sunow's eyes with sudden determination, he said, "I won't just tell you. We'll _do_ it today."

The Aeesu-jin's surprised expression went unnoticed as Gohan turned around to leave and collect his thoughts. "Isn't that a little soon?"

"No." Gohan said flatly. He didn't want to talk any more. 

------------------------

General Kokoschka led the third Aeesu-jin search party across the strangely foreign landscape of his own planet, searching for the escapee Saiya-jin boy. There was twelve of them, strong, sturdy, powerful, though most of them were too young to have grown to truely intimidating sizes. Furim, Kokoschka's now official understudy, was the tallest among them save the General himself.

They traveled fast, combing the land, their eyes securely on the ground in search of even the slightest hint that their quarry had passed this way.

Now scaling rocky cliffs, now tramping through swampy marshes created by the rain, now climbing over unsteady boulders, now wiping sweat from their brows, now swearing as their footing slipped on the loose dirt.

Furim's colorful, if not entirely inappropriate, vocabulary surprised even the General. Jogging side by side, he said, "I want to go back to the Underground. It's too hot out here." A drop of perspiration trailed down his temple in his argument.

Kokoschka actually found himself laughing, thumping his chest with a fist, taking a deep breath of sweet air, he said, "Then you should try your hardest to find our elusive Son Gohan." He paused, inhaling again, "Smell that? This air is fresh. Never been caught in an air conditioner. Never been recycled by an air pump. The air in the Underground is dead, but this, well, _this_ is real, live air. I'm in no hurry to go back just yet. This is great."

Furim didn't seem to particularly hear him; "Ung. Son Gohan. I'm tired of hearing that name. I haven't heard Henning issue an order that _doesn't_ involve that goddam Saiya-jin in weeks." At that moment, he half-lost his footing as the seemingly sturdy stone he'd been occupying suddenly gave way under him, his long, wirey tail flapping to regain balance.

The General caught his elbow and steadied him before he said, "Our employer--mind you, you are being paid for this hardship--_does_ seem to be more than slighly obsessive compulsive. If it weren't this boy it would be someone else. My only advice remains the same: if you want Henning to stop this mad hung, just hope he finds Son and keeps him found until he's done with him."

"And what _does_ he want with him?" Furim asked. 

Kokoschka studied the other as they continued on their task. Furim _was_ still quite young, at twenty-six he was the youngest in the party, but even if he was green, with the ignorance of youth on his side, could he really not speculate what Henning had in mind for Son? What else _would_ a maniacle creature like Henning want with an opponent taken alive rather than dead? This particular Tahch-jin employer must never be mistaken as harmless mad man. 

He was a sadist. And a frightful one.

"I mean," Furim went on to say, adding to his own question, sounding as though he were more trying to reassure _himself_ more than anything else, "I mean, the kid _is_ still just a kid.You saw him, right? Twelve? Thirteen? Yeah, he's just a Saiya-jin and everything, but even if he _did_ kill all those Aeesu-jin, it's not going to change the fact that he's-

"Shh." Kokoschka said, elbowing him roughly and glancing at the other Aeesu-jin in the squad to be sure none of them overheard. Never know who would take the opportunity of pointing out potential mutiny to Henning to climb the ladder all the faster. But no one was near. No one was listening.

Not waiting for or expecting a reply, Furim went on to say, "Y'know? I could almost feel sorry for the kid."

"Shh," the General repeated, then glanced left and right once more to assure himself. He murmered in reply, "I think most of us do."

------------------------

Gohan had never really learned the correct way to cope with trauma.

The opportunity to learn how had never been offered, since that first day he awoke after his first violently induced state of unconsciousness (courtesy of his uncle Radditz) and suddenly found himself in the care of the large green man introducing himself as "Piccolo". Perhaps at that time, in his little four-year-old heart, he knew how to deal with emotional pain, for when he was informed, through Piccolo's dead-pan monotone, that his father was dead, he was willing to shed his tears; grieve, deal with it in his own childish way.....

He was, that is, until his actions were abruptly cut short by the obviously not-yet-befriended Piccolo, who quickly yelled at him, all too seriously, "Start crying and I'll break your neck!"

And so he swallowed back his tears; his first lesson in supressing negative mental feelings. 

It was quite a memorable introduction.

And from then on, through the next nine years of random unpleasant memories, it quickly became his sole method of dealing with the bad, unfair things that happened to him; it was easier, quicker, and, so far, it worked. Yes, it left a black residue in the back of his mind, the memories--hidden but still retaining their full intensity--came back with vivid detail in his dreams. 

He kept promising himself that he would confront his interior misalignments, that he would chase away the bad memories rather then concealing them with shadows, but the time or opportunity never came up. As years past, and the darkness inside continued to grow, he lost the ambition to face it. It was too big, and his confidence continued to shrink and he doubted he had the power to withstand them all. So he went on, pretending it wasn't there, hoping that with time the inner problems would heal themselves go away on their own.

It hadn't happened yet, but he was yet stubbornly refusing to dig them up and fight them on a conscious level.

But he could deal with the darkness. As long as it remained hidden, he could function. Live. Survive.

But, though a day had passed, the memory of Bojack hitting him, holding him against the wall by his hair when he tried to fall to his knees, had yet to conceal itself under the dark swaths of his mind. Only occastionally could he slide it to the side and think functionably, but, when he wasn't consciously fighting it off, or tentatively groping at hope, it was sliding its way back to the surface of his thoughts. Relentless. Dominant.

Perhaps there was nowhere left inside him to hide it. Thirteen years of hidden memories could fill up a mind, couldn't it? 

It bothered him. Troubled him. Ate away at him as he aimlessly walked through the the purple fields, unaware of the new, exotic flowers that had sprung up after the heavy rain from the previous day. 

There was a particular muscle in his back that was knotted, a pinched nerve, just below his ribs and beside his spine. Impact wound. From either Bojack's fist or from being thrown against the rock wall. Every time he put weight on his left leg the knot antagonized him, pinching. It was at too awkward of an angle for him to masage it out. It was a plague.

At that moment, he desperately missed his mother. Kaasan, her fingers strong and nimble--expirienced from years or working out even the deepest knots from Tousan and his backs--could work the muscular ailment out within minutes. 

For just a moment he closed his eyes, trying to hide behind the warm memory of Kaasan sitting on the side of his bed, masaging all his worries and anxieties and pain and memories out of him just by digging her knuckles into the meaty muscles of his shoulder blades, or rubbing slow circles along the sides of his spine at the small of his back with her palms. Singing quietly to him, telling him how proud of him she was, ruffling his hair lovingly.

But somehow the almost tangible memory changed itself, and the slender fingers rubbing his back soon became the sharp jab of stone as his body was thrown against them; and he could almost seen the flash of blue fists come crashing toward him, the hand in his hair now harsh, holding him up to keep him from collapsing....

_It's only a memory! You're safe now!_

He snarled loudly, forcing himself to focus his eyes on the reality around him. No rain. No stones pressed against his back. No fists. No blood. No threat. No Bojack. He was alone, on his knees, his hands covering his face from the unreal enemy.

Oh, this was such a bitch. He could _not_ function in this condition. He slammed one fist into the ground, grabbing up a handful of dirt and grass and flowers. Raising the fistful over his shoulder, he threw it across the field, yelling at himself, "Stupid, stupid! What's your problem!? Get _over_ it!" It was a rare occurance, indeed, when one of his inner voices became brave enough to speak aloud, rather than simply harping at him from within.

He made a vocal sound similar to, "Arrhh!!" as he began systematically pulling up hunks of mud and stone and dirt and foliage and heaving them in random directions. The roots of the plants made _riiiiip_-ing sounds as they were torn up, in the distance his ears heard the _chnnk_ as the targetless missles struck down. All the while the pinched nerve in his back continued to hurt and each time he flung his arm out, projecting gobs of grit and plant, it loudly threatened to rebel.

_That's it_, one voice inside him said decidedly, his hands falling into his lap helplessly, the hairs of his tail smoothing with resignation, _That's it._ And then it grabbed hold of his vocals and managed to say aloud, "That's it. That's it. I can't do it."

His eyes widened and a chill ran up his spine as a queer feeling of deja vu taunted him behind a mask of mystery.

_I can't do it_. 

So familiar. He'd said those words before. And it was with a sudden feeling of urgency he tried to remember when. _I can't do it_. He'd said it during the last agonizing leg of the fight with Cell, but that wasn't the particular memory he was looking for--or he was not yet ready to think of that particular time in his life. No, the time he was trying to recall was older, hidden deeper in his mind, beneath all the other concealed incidences. 

_I_... _I can't, daddy_..._ it hurts too much_..... 

His head snapped up with sudden recognition. That was it. The memory that was so very important--yet had been hidden beneath _eight years_ of other memories--suddenly returned to the surface of his mind like a festering corpse floating to the surface of a lake after weeks of decay at the watery bottom. Only instead of being partly rotted away, this memory was perfectly intact. Every last detail. Oh, why couldn't it have at least been _dulled_ with time? 

_I can't_.....

_No, that's not where it started, dummy. Go further back._

This voice was new. Different. Throughout his life, Gohan had come to know and listen to the little whispers in the back of his mind. Thought of them as old friends. But this one was new. Cynical. Full of dry humor. And it wasn't friendly.

But it filed him through the memory as the sights and smells and tastes and fears crawled up from the bowels of his mind, consuming his senses.

_It was your first battle, wasn't it? The Saiya-jins. The Saiya-jins had come, and were fiercer and stronger than you imagined or dared to guess. Death. Gohan, meet Death. I think he likes you, Death does. By gum, look how he smiles when you look his way. Look how it extends its cold, clammy hands to catch you if you fall. Nice guy, Death. Gohan, m' boy, I think you two will become very close._

_But Tousan is back. Back from the dead. Didn't see that one coming. Forgot about him, didn't cha? But he's back! Just like Piccolo-san promised. And the big Saiya-jin is dead. Only it was Vegita that killed him. Blew him up. Boom. Nothing left. Not a piece of him. Wouldn't there at least be ashes? Look and see, you won't find any._

_But then, Vegita's still to strong, isn't he? The big Saiya-jin, Nappa, he's dead, but it's Vegita that you should have worried about. Nappa-who, right? Vegita. A huge monster, teeth and fur. Too big. Too strong. And Tousan is hurt. Tousan isn't moving. So much for living, huh? Hah, thought you were gonna get away, didn'tcha? C'mon, now. Come shake Death's hand. He's eager to give you a hug._

_A swipe of steel and the tail is cut off. The giant monster is no more. No, it's not gone. Now it's just a normal-sized monster. Are we safe, now? No. Not even close. Tousan's still hurt. Tousan's still not moving. But the Saiya-jin is not hurt. He's just angry. You can smell his anger. Feel it? Too much. Too much chi. Too much anger. You're gonna die, Gohan, m' boy. This is it._

_He's talking, Vegita is. The Saiya-jin is talking. Doesn't matter what he's saying, does it? Of course it does. Listen, dummy. Never take an eye or an ear off the enemy until he's dead. That's what Piccolo said, right? So listen. Listen, dummy, what's he saying?_

_"Do you want to die so much?!" he's saying, "Fine, you will!" _

_He's coming for you! Move it, Gohan, run, run! That's what Kuririn is telling you, isn't it? Run, little boy, you shouldn't have been on the battle field to begin with. Why aren't you moving? Because the Saiya-jin is standing right in front of us. He's talking again. "You'll be the first," he says. _

_Run, stupid, run! Run or die-_

_Hit. In the stomach. Goosh. You heard it, didn't 'cha, dummy? You heard it before you felt it. Goooooosh. And then you felt it. But by then you're bent over, aren't you? Taste that blood in your mouth? Yeah, it's yours. Sweet, hm? Lap it up, there's more where that came from. _

_He's talking again. Goddamit, why aren't you listening? Never take your ear off the enemy! Can't hear? Got that ringing in your head? Doesn't matter, really. Uh, oh. He's got a hold on you, Gohan, and I don't think he's helping you up._

_Wham. It's amazing what the skull can withstand, itsn't it? Look at those stars. Bright splotches of light. Can't focus our eyes, can we? Funny, but you can hear again. Didn't hear everything he said. Caught, "You can die next to daddy." _

_Whoops, you're flying through the air, now. Wheee. Hate the landing part of falling. Doncha' wish you could fall forever? Just falling and falling and_..._ Wait, there's Tousan! You're so close to him you can smell his blood. You smell his pain. Didn't know pain had a smell, did you? And fear. You smell that, too? Daddy's afraid. _

_He's alive and conscious, though. And he's talking to you, kiddo. Better listen good._

_"G_..._Gohan?" He's asking. That's my name, don't wear it out. Right? Yeah. You could have said that. But you only groan._

_"Gohan_..._ My body is_..._m-messed up. I can't move anymore. You_..._ have to fight for me instead. H_..._he's a lot weaker now too_..._"_

_And how do you respond? Your fathers telling you to do something. Answer._

_"He's_..._strong_..._," you say. We remember it well, don't we? "He's too strong_..._I_..._I can't, daddy_..._"_

_Oh yes, that was what you said. And you meant it. You know things are broken. In our little five year old body, things are broken, and crushed, and bleeding. You just know, don't you. And he __**is**__ too strong. Blood in your mouth, dripping down your head where you were hit. No way to win. Just lie still, and maybe it will be quick. Our eyes are closed. Won't open. Don't open them. Don't want to see._

_Don't want to see all that blood, do you? Don't want to see Tousan, broken and bloody and scared. Smell that blood. Smell that fear. Don't open your eyes. Don't want to see._

_Just lie still._

_"You_..._you don't have to win_... _Just_..._hold him off_..._," Tousan insists, "I know you have_..._enough strength for that_..._," and then the clincher, "Then_..._Kuririn will f-finish him off_..._"_

_Squashed insides, bleedy outsides. You don't want to stand up, don't want to move. Don't want to see or hear or smell or feel anymore. Oh, Gohan, m'boy, you're gonna die. Are you afraid? Just lie still. Hope it comes fast._

_"I_... _I can't, daddy_..._ it hurts too much_....._"_

_And now we're where you wanted to be, aren't we? We remember it so clearly, the pain, the blood, the fear. The helplessness. The death. Remeber it so well. But what happens next? You hid it. Why? What happened after that? What!? It's so very important! Think, dummy, unearth it! What happened!? What did Tousan say!?_

_Tousan_...

_Tousan yelled. At you. First and only time he'd ever yelled at you like that._

_He yelled, "What are you_..._a __**coward**__?! Gonna let_..._all those people die for __**nothing**__?! What did_..._Piccolo teach you?!"_

_Gut wrenching pain. New, horrible pain. This time, you were not hit. Not hurt. But the words stung with such pain and burning acuracy that few things could strike you so deeply._

_A coward. He, Tousan, called you a_...

With a heaved gasp, Gohan suddenly became aware of the real world, sweat beaded along his brow. He was standing. On Aeesu-sei. He was not five. He was thirteen. He was not injured in the stomach. Or the head. And Tousan was not hurt. Tousan was dead. 

_What are you_..._a __**coward**__?!_

_No_, he wanted to say. _I didn't mean it. _

Something inside him was on fire. Burning. Scalding. Adrenaline coursed through his system. His tail was swept in an upward curve, an arc, behind him. Whatever sag of defeat that had once taken his shoulders was chased from him, frightened away at the smell of the smoke. Smoke from the flames, burning. Internally. 

A ripple ran the length of his body, his chi, his soul. Tousan. There was his focus. He'd long since lost the ambition to fight for himself. And he no longer possessed the will power to fight for Earth. But he would fight, to the death, for Tousan. Because Tousan would have wanted him to fight. Tousan would not have given up.

_What are you_..._a __**coward**__?!_

No, I'm not. I'll prove it.

And with that grim determination, despair could find no foot hold. Gohan didn't feel good. Didn't stop hurting, didn't stop hating, didn't release the pinch lines on his face. The knot in his back didn't magically vanish. But he felt different. Perhaps better. No longer was he filled with a sense of ultimate failure. Son Goku's first born son would _not_ be a coward. He was not going to run away. Was not going to give up. 

_You wait and see, Tousan. I won't let you down._

------------------------

"...and he said we were going to do it today," Sunow was speaking to Freeza, throwing up his hands as he said, "But I don't even know what he has in mind! One minute he's asking questions, then he vanishes, seemingly completely confident and totally unconfident at the same time!"

"He gave you no hint as to what he had planned?" Freeza asked, mulled, a hand against his chin in thought. He was, admitably, curious about Son Gohan. Would the boy act like the other Saiya-jins he'd come into contact with, perhaps he could understand the bozu better. But therein lay the problem. Yes, by heritage, yes by technique, yes by instincts, yes by nature, yes, yes, yes, he was indeed Saiya-jin in a great many ways, but, kami, he was _not_ a Saiya-jin! Freeza disliked being unable to understand a person, be they foe or be they ally.

Son Gohan was unpredictable. And that continued to remain unnerving.

"What are your confidences, Sunow-san?" he asked, his voice smooth and languid as ever; hell if he was going to let _his_ ruffled feathers show, "Do you think it will work, the gaki's plan?"

Sunow could find no absolute answer. But speak he did, "Maybe. I hope. I think it's our best chance... I just wish I knew for sure."

Freeza snorted uneasily, tapping his nose with the back of one of his fingers. His tail brushed rapidly against the ground, upsetting the dust collected there. "So we wait, then?"

"We do."

So await Son Gohan they did.

They could feel it. Something big was going to happen. Soon. And once it did, it would only get bigger.

**To be continued....**


	32. CM32

Untitled Normal Page

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 32**

Wash it away. 

Wash away all evidence of the former helplessness. Gohan's goal. Or, more specifically, he would settle to remove the coppery taste of blood from his mouth, scrub it off his face, and remove its dark crusty build up that had formed under his nose. And then return to the camp--it's members, anyway--as quickly as possible. 

There was a battle to be won. A fight to win. A confrontation to face. Preparations--collectively thought of as The Plan--had to be met. The Tahch-jin fortress had to be infiltrated. Therein, the main computer had to be found, therein broken into. This accomplished, a single, extraordinary change had to be made to a specific program.

And then he would be ready. Ready for the final showdown. Ready to fight. Ready to win. Ready to kill. And kill some more. He was prepared. The Tahch-jin had to die.

His jaw was tight, his eyes ablaze, his heart beating savagely in his chest. He was no coward. Oh, Tousan, he was not. And he was going to prove it. The Le'Armont brothers stood between him and the safety of Chikyuu, Earth, his home, his sancuary, his sanity. Confront, fight, kill....

A deep pool of water lay at his feet. The previous day's rain had filled a heavy depression in the rocky ground, and even now more trickling, giggling water was feeding the growing pond, homeless water, finding its final resting place under the blazing sky.

It felt good to remove his boots. Even better to strip off the body suit. Removing the gauze wrap from his leg, he decided that it just felt good to be free of all cloth restraints. Felt good, in essence, to be naked.

Standing at the water's edge, the sun reflecting off his pale bare skin, he finally remembered to check the stitches on his leg. They were, as expected, ruined. The rain had long since soaked through his body suit, its moisture compromising the strength of the dissolvable threads; the pain-stakingly careful job the boy had done sewing his leg back together again had gone to hell; no longer capable of performing it's function, holding the fleshy hole together.

But then again, the stitching was also no longer needed.

By use of his rapid metabolism and ever astounding Saiya-jin healing, the worst of the damage had already begun to repair itself. Four days of reasonable rest and recovery had been the sort of condition he'd needed.

Still, a puckered red scar remined, flecked with a stubbornly deep crust of scab; it would be a good month before it was completely healed. But this would do. This would _have_ to do. There was no other way.

Sitting down, noting through his bare skin the warmth of the stone as it baked under the sun, he stretched his legs before him, his knees flat against the ground. He pointed his toes, testing the muscles in both his legs, taking care to specifically remark on the give and pull of his torn left leg. He rotated his feet at the ankles, his back erect, until his toes gradually angled to point sky-ward, then, still slowly, noncomitally, they rotated yet more, until they reached their anatomical limit, pointing back up his legs, toward the rest of his body. His tail lay parallel to the ground behind him, remaining cooperationally still.

His left calf was whispering warnings to him, the muscle threatening to tear and reopen if pushed too far. He breathed deeply in, then, as he exhaled, he forced his body to relax, the muscles in his legs to loosen, until the ripping feeling in his not-yet-mended leg faded into an antagonistic hum in the background of his senses.

With a final exhalation, he leaned inward, over his legs, arms outstretched before him, his fingers reaching.

The heels of his palms landed on his toes, his hands wrapping over the ball of his foot until his fingers rested on the inner arches of his feet.

His wound could not take it.

With a yelp, his leg spazmed, bucking upward, bending his leg and breaking the concentration of the stretch. Just couldn't take it. Not yet, anyway. Given time, perhaps he could work it back into shape, but not now. It was just too severe.

It struck him as odd, all of the sudden, that nearly two weeks ago--he wasn't exactly sure how he'd been on Aeesu--Kami Larkas had just healed him from thirteen years of physical pain and hardships. Yet, here he was now, and he'd nearly completely made up for lost damages and added to the panorama he familiarly refered to as pain.

_Wasting time again. Vegita-san's right. You think too much._

In a sudden haste, he entered the water, submerging his body up to his head, and scrubbing as tenderly at the rainbow of colors blooming in spectacular hues across his arms and torso and, though he couldn't see it, face. Ugly splashes of color. Blue and purple and green and yellow and red and murky brown and, in some special places, black.

Bruises were great mood wreckers.

He redressed, ignoring the pain it put apon his body, and, as he finished tying his boots, decided putting it off would help nothing. He stood, shook a few droplets of water from his hair, stretched his arms out at his sides a moment, snapped his tail loudly behind him, then began his trek back to the awaiting party. 

Ready as he ever would be.

------------------------

"-can't take this anymore, brother, I just can't." Joru Le'Armont was speaking, a thin indention of sincerity creasing his brow, "I won't stay here anymore. I'm going back to the Underground. It's too wild out here. Too dirty. Too...uncontrolled."

The two of them stood at the window of the capsule house, side by side, both their gazes observing, though not really seeing, the din of movement coming from the rows of army-style navy blue tents, Aeesu-jin and other, stranger creatures mulling through their unknown activities whilst waiting for the first ten search parties--seeking the Saiya-jin boy and his accomplices-- to return and be replaced with fresher parties.

"I understand." Henning said quietly. He had seen it coming. Joru, the sensitive one, had _always_ harbored this unwanton fear of the great outdoors. Not just fear but even hatred. Loathing. The disorderliness, the random acts of spontaneous, inexplainable happenings... It all, so obvious for Henning's sensitive eye to see, rubbed the gentler brother the wrong way. Grated at his nerves. Made him uneasy. "I'm impressed you stayed with me as long as you have."

As Joru sagged with unspeakable relief--he'd been afraid his brother would force him to stay--and watched two large Aeesu-jin carrying a yet unerected tent, he failed to notice Henning grinning. Failed to notice the glee his sibling felt that he would no longer have to restrain himself from his impulses, from more aggressively pursuing the object of his desire. His desire. Little Saiya-jin Gohan, with his soft tail and smooth skin. His narrow wrists and pointed chin.

"Do you want me to prepare an escort?" Henning asked.

Joru smiled openly, enjoying his brother's sudden concern. A shake of his head, "No. Thank you. I've already had one assembled."

"Right, then," Henning said, embracing his brother in an surprising gesture of affection--he was in a frightfully good mood--, "You're in command of the Fortress. Think you can handle it?"

And so the two spoke back and forth in the friendliest of manners, Joru never noticing Henning leading him toward the door more and more with each word. And when they finally seperated outside, Joru going with a body of four Aeesu-jin and two other aliens of the hairy kind, to return to the Tahch-jin fortress, Henning was all-out leering in a way Joru failed to understand.

He was just glad to see Joru leave.

He had so hoped to get some alone time once Gohan was returned to him.

------------------------

Seated on a large stone, Forester at his side and Eesei happily draped across his lap--against her father's wishes--Gohan took strength from his allies. He kept his chin raised, displaying the bruises on his face fearlessly, as though he adored every last discoloration. Wore them with pride. 

Before him, awaiting to hear the now enfamed plan he had, stood Sunow, Freeza and Garlic--but the latter two meant nothing to him. His eyes were blank when he met their gaze. He was really talking to Sunow, and Sunow alone. The Aeesu-jin's open face, his ruby eyes encouraging, his head nodding in acknowledgement or agreeance... He was a life saver. That, and Bojack was no where in sight. His missed presence went without comment, though all noticed.

Gohan spoke better than he could have hoped. Explaining his intention before he even voiced his plan, hoping to avoid the questions that could lead to opposition--words like "why" for instance. He told them the incredible asset they could gain by following along, though he made it quietly enough to avoid sounding smug.

"-and so all we really need to do now is split into groups." He said in hemi-conclution, raising his eyebrows to express that he was now open to questions. He braced himself for the worst.

"Why split up?" was what Garlic asked, tugging at one of his ear lobes in half-masked consideration. He didn't want to seem too enthused, but he didn't want to be counted as opted out, either. He was anxious. Ready for action. He'd been patiently idle, but with action just waiting, he was eager to do it.

"I don't know how big the Tahch-jin fortress is," Gohan said, running a hand partway through his hair nerviously before he stopped himself, "In order to find the main computer, we'll need to be able to search for it in as little time as possible." 

He hoped that didn't sound ill-prepared. He needed these people to have faith. Needed them to believe all would go according to plan. That's how it's supposed to be! Things are always supposed to go according to plan. His palms were sweaty, and he rubbed them against the legs of his body suite. Oh, he was nervious.

"How many groups?" Sunow asked, leaning forward to hear--the boy spoke so softly!

"I only was able to make two communicators...," again the boy felt a pang of ill preparation, but he squelched it. He had worked with what he had. That was all that mattered. "Two groups. That'll have to do."

"Who goes in which group?" Forester spoke up from behind Gohan, his voice slightly strained. He had a bad feeling he was going to be left out of the opperation.

An expectant silence spread between the group, all of their eyes waiting Gohan's decistion. His face was a few shades lighter. A thrill of fear. He hadn't thought about that. Who _would_ be needed in each group?

"Only Sunow or I would be able to actually break into the computer once we find it, so we'll start the split there." He half-closed his eyes in thought, gave a miniscule shake of his head, rubbed his fingers into the irritating knot in his back, then said, finally, "And each team would need someone who knows how to read chi. To avoid trouble and give an early warning for on-coming danger."

"I guess I'm with the Aeesu-jin, then," Garlic said, tilting his head at Sunow for a fraction of a second. He felt so very uncomfortable working with people rather than telling them what to do... yet somehow, he found it almost fun. Like playing war. He'd never played when he was little. His father had seen to that. 

"Then it's just me and the gaki," Freeza murmered, crossing his arms and closing his eyes.

"I don't know...," Gohan nibbled his lip, "Between Garlic and Sunow, I don't think they could hold off even one Aeesu-jin if trouble does happen..."

"What about me?" Forester interupted, looking from one person to another, "Which group am I in? Papa's or Gohan's?"

"Forester...," Sunow said, studying the ground.

"Papa...," Forester's adolescent voice was accusably pleading, "I _have_ to go."

"Me, too!" Eesei crowed from her perch on Gohan's lap, "I'm goin' too! I gotta, jus' like For'ster said!"

"No," Forester quickly said, "You can't. You're way too little-"

Gohan interrupted, "So she would have to stay here all alone? Unprotected? Unwatched? Henning _is_ still out there-"

"But...," Forester strangled out, attempting to counter but fairing poorly, "Well, she could... there's always....," at that time, he realized he would have to stay. He could plead someone else to stay and watch his sister, but... well, everyone else was _needed_. Papa and Gohan had to break into the computers. Garlic was needed to sense the chi and keep Papa safe. Freeza.... wouldn't. He sighed in resignation. "I understand. Eesei needs me."

Eesei made a sound and leapt from Gohan's lap like a spider monkey, wrapping herself around her brother, "I was scared," she said, "that you were gonna leave me, For'ster. I was scared an' didn't want you to leave me. I don' really wanna go, but..." She sniffled.

The young Aeesu-jin boy sighed and patted her back, his tail touching hers then wrapping around her, holding her tight, "I won't leave you."

"Ah, Gohan?" Sunow drew the attention back to the mission at hand, "I'm _not_ very good at hacking into computers..."

Gohan exhaled, "It's just numbers if you break it down enough. It's like a tightly woven rope, just keep unwiding it until you're down to just one hair, then break in. Numbers. Math." 

He was so very grateful Bulma-san had taught him just _how_ to break the coding of even the most elaborately tight files. Just numbers. Mathematics. That was what made it great. 

He was good with numbers. Had been since he'd first learned to count at five months, his skills being nurtured by his mother at even that tender age. Numbers were so very good to him. They were consistant. They made sense. They didn't kill each other or get angry. They didn't have chi, didn't destroy planets, didn't want revenge and didn't feel pain. Numbers were trustworthy. Consistant. They always worked out the way they were supposed to.

Sunow was still nervous, "I know all that... but I'm not very good at keeping so many numbers in my head."

Gohan smiled reassuringly, "That's one of the reasons I constructed the communicators. If you find the main computer first, I'll be able to help you through it until I find you."

"Where are the communicators?" Freeza asked mildly, hiding his curiosity. He hadn't had a chance to see them up close before.

"Just a minute," Gohan said, rising from the rock he was seated on, "I'll get them."

He left the congretation of unlikely allies to return to the shallow cave he'd constructed the previous night, suddenly getting this horrendous premonition that the tin tool box containing the communicators would be gone. But it wasn't. It was exactly where he'd left it, sitting in the shadows against the stone, out of the sun. 

He drew it forth into the sunlight, popping it open to discover the undisturbed objects into which he had devoted so much time. He collected them out and stood, fitting one into his own ear, bending the earwire around the back of his ear to secure it, extending the antenna, running his finger along it to make sure it wasn't obstructive. 

He was actually smiling. A quiet, almost distraght smile. 

"We're actually going to do it," he said to himself, fingering the second communicator nerviously, "We're going to go."

"Go where?" Bojack's voice said behind him.

Gohan spun to find the Biraju-jin leaning over him, so close he could see small droplets of water dripping of his prominant blue chin. The giant must have been getting a drink. That was where he had been. The boy shied away from him two steps.

_What are you_..._a __**coward**__?!_

He stopped himself.

"Go where?" Bojack repeated, covering the two steps Gohan had taken. Bent over slightly, his face was hardly six inches from the boy's.

Gohan felt cold inside. He wasn't fearless, he just didn't feel fear. He felt nothing, really, except repelled at the obviousness of Bojack's antagonization.

He lifted his head and met the Biraju-jin's eyes. 

Uncaring if his next actions got him beaten or killed or worse, he raised a hand, four fingers held up. 

He lowered a finger. 

One. The first day. Passed.

Then he lowered a second.

Two days already gone.

Then a third. 

The third day had vanished as well, slipping away like morning fog.

A profound silence filled the air as both Gohan and Bojack's eyes were captivated on that one hand, that one finger, the full intensity of the situation causing the internal fire within the boy to only burn brighter. 

That one, final finger wavered. 

The last day. _Tick tock. Tick tock tick tock. Ticktockticktockticktock_....

The fourth and final finger lowered.

The boy's thumb curled under his palm, completeing a fist.

"Times up," Gohan said, "Four days have gone by. It's time to go."

Rolling the communicator in his hand, he turned his back on Bojack and began to return to the awaiting group. He stopped when a large blue hand fell heavily on his shoulder, stopping him.

"Don't play games with me," the Biraju-jin hissed from behind him. The boy's body stiffened as the knuckles of Bojack's other hand brushed over his tail threateningly, teasingly. But then he roughly releasing the boy's shoulder and took a step back. 

Gohan exhaled, straightened his shoulders, and turned to meet the blue giant's gaze, "This is no game." His tail slid around his waist protectively, only the very end twitching his anxiety, and he covered the distance to Sunow and the others, hesitation burned from his face. He could be afraid later.

No time now. Never the time.

**

In the end, Bojack agreed to accompany Sunow and Garlic, thus completeing group one, while group two consisted of only Gohan and Freeza, who complied to tolerate one another for the benefit of safety in numbers.

Now hovering just outside the mountanous door through which Gohan had escaped his Tahch-jin captivity--even he was surprised he'd remebered where it was--the five of them began to mentally prepare themselves for the task. They would need stelth. Speed. Wit.

Sunow now wore the second communicator, and had turned it on. He was jittery. He worried for his kids. But he was going to do this. He was. He had to.

Gohan had removed the metal panel next to the door and was messing with connected wires until the door suddenly _swish_ed open. 

They entered.

_Well, Gohan m'boy, you scared? _

_No_..._not yet at least_.

Internally, Gohan was laughing. Externally, his pale face was set in a sterner mold. At the first fork in the hall, he nodded once to Sunow the two groups split up, half-running down each hall, their eyes honed, their ears listening for the sound of footsteps.

His Saiya-jin instincts were creeping suspictiously closer to the top of his reflexes. 

Time to do this.

**To be continued.....**


	33. CM33

Contradicting Mission

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 33**

Scarce is the Aeesu-jin of any age that can claim to have seen Heng. Rarer yet is the Aeesu-jin that could truly have seen Heng stand apon his own two feet, rather than supporting his immense frame in his deeply set wooden chair.

But the Aeesu-jin secretaries that accompanied Heng now witnessed a spectacle in which no living Aeesu-jin had ever seen before.

Heng was no longer in Heaven.

He was storming through the halls, his huge size filling every breadth and width, his horns raking against the ceiling, his arms denting the walls on passing, his feet crushing deep prints in the tiles beneath him. His phenomenally long, large tail sloped behind him, seeming almost endless from whence it started to its point of conclusion.

His inside sources, scoping the Tahch-jin's every move, had reported the very information that had caught up in the mind of Son Gohan the previous day. The Tahch-jin had left their fortress virtually unprotected. And, also like the Saiya-jin youth, the gargantuan Aeesu-jin deity had seen this as an invitation to attack.

And, like Son Gohan, Heng's destination was the same. He sought the main computer, but only here did the two's intentions differ.

Heng wanted his power back. 

And he was going to get it. By force if need be--and hope, he did, that force would be required.

The strategic pieces were set, and in the end of this game Heng would not find himself in any other position than directly on top. And he was hoping there would be a mountain of bodies to stand on. He was angry. And he wanted blood. And his long ignored warrior's instincts were ablaze with the premonition that there would be much fighting and battling and killing lying ahead.

Again, he hoped so.

----------------------------

The search process in which Son Gohan participated was far more boring than expected. His assumptions laid true that the fortress was, indeed, partially abandoned. And the remaining persons, a quick mental sweep of chi showed, were hardly worth reckoning with. These were the trainees, the young, or the inexperienced. These were the sentry that had spent their employment with the Tahch-jin behind a safe computer terminal or filing papers or washing clothes.

These were not fighters.

Gohan's hair-thin confidence was clawing at anything it could find substance in. _This could work, couldn't it? This might actually work?_

But even now it was only with difficulty that it stuck. And his other selves were not ready to agree. 

_Don't you dare get your hopes up, yet, kiddo. Any second something bad is going to happen, and if your not ready for it you might as well die now rather than wait for it._

Wearily, he let himself hang on that balance, walking the rail between determination and weary cynicism, dipping to one side then the other like a drunken ballroom dancer, wetting his toes in each and deciding he didn't have the interior strength or willingness to fully sustain either. 

He palmed the eleventh door open of the left side of the hall (Freeza was checking all the doors on the right side), and for the eleventh time it swished open without resistance, revealing a room very much like the past ten. Drab color scheme, dichromatic, of gray ceiling, gray walls, and a floor set with deep earthy orange tiles. Within the room were only the implements of dwelling and living. A single cot with light gray sheets, topped with a darker gray pillow and feather quilt. A wardrobe filled with only two other uniforms and a single set of casual clothes--a search proved. A mini-terminal was installed in the corner, not unlike the terminal he had seen before in Sunow's house--a time that felt so far away, now. 

He had already learned that these computers did not have the type of access he needed.

Gohan felt old. Not matured or experienced, but rather as though his years had suddenly slipped out of him through his still tender nose, or perhaps his ears, leaving behind an aged shell for him to dwell in. Weary. His eyes felt heavy and dry. His sockets stiff. 

Hell to it all. He was going to do this, alright. But then he was going to take a nap. 

Door number twelve, and nothing worth looking at.

He sighed, closing his eyes a moment and the door _swooshed_ closed. He moved on.

His powers of perception seemed disturbingly limited in the knowledge they sent to his brain. It took him quite a while to realize he was chewing heartily at his lower lip, gnawing at a stubborn scab. The remains of his split lip. He was unaware he was chewing at it, rolling it between his teeth, until the scab tore itself free, landing pointedly on his tongue; instantly his lip began to bleed again, a warm droplet sliding halfway down the center of his chin before he caught it with the back of his wrist. He pulled his hand away from his face to eye the red smudge, spitting the scab out.

Still eyeing the red smudge, his clean hand palmed the thirteenth room. Glancing up: another living quarters, as suspiciously similar to the last as the eleven were that came before it. 

He wiped the blood from his wrist on his hip, looked up the hall at the numerous other doors, hundreds, really, all waiting to be checked.

They were probably all just living quarters.

But, then again, they may not be. Any door now, he could come across that which he sought.

Or not.

He did not know.

The scientist inside Gohan--who the boy had long since presumed dead, dying long ago somewhere along the rough road he'd recently trod--whimpered pathetically, complaining about the over-abundance of doubt cropping of late. But it was soon silenced by the side of Gohan that was not his friend, so harshly and with such acts of mental violence that the boy flinched. That side of him he would need to work on.

Door number fourteen.

Clear.

Number fifteen.

Clear.

Sixteen. Seventeen. Twenty. Twenty-five.

Clear, clear, clear, clear, clear, clear, clear, clear.....

_Kuso, you didn't think about this happening, did you, dummy_...

*

Freeza's thoughts were fabulously similar to those stewing in Gohan's mind. Forty or so paces up the hall from the curiously baffling, ultimately infuriating Saiya-jin kusogaki, the Aeesu-jin, coming up yet another clear living quarters (unlike the boy, he did not count off the rooms he searched), he wished the doors were on hinges just so he could _slam_ them shut after reaching each redundant let-down. He, also like the boy, was almost convinced they would not find anything.

Uncertainty, however, seemed to be viciously contagious, spreading from the Saiya-jin boy to the dead Aeesu-jin dictator like a splurge of wild fire consuming a field of sun-dried grasses.

"Ah...hn..."

A small sound of surprise or perhaps distraction alerted Freeza, obviously coming from the gaki.

Freeza glanced back, his arms crossed, prepared to demand what was wrong _now_ but stopped when he caught sight of the stance Son Gohan was in.

The boy, his ankles pressed together, his weight pressing entirely on his toes, his heels elevated only millimeters from the ground in readiness. His back was fully straight, his neck craned, his head tilted at a slight angle. He resembled, somewhat, an alerted bird, but rather than ruffled feathers, his dark locks seemed to have risen half a centimeter from his forehead, whilst his tail swung anxiously behind him like an absent pendulum, the hairs of it standing out in such a severe way that it seemed to be made of spines. One of his eyes was closed, the other squinted, as though he were looking at something afar with a single good eye, or hearing some distant sound.

By now, Freeza recognized the symptoms.

The boy was feeling something in the invisible forces of chi. And, judging from his stance and alerted position, it was something less than assuring. Perhaps danger. Perhaps lethal. Perhaps approaching.

"So?" Freeza asked, cursing himself that his voice lacked the confidence he had spent so many years fusing into it.

The boy blinked, retrieving his chin from its elevated position, his eyes centering forward and slightly downward, his brow furled.

He pressed the knuckled of his index finger against his lips.

"Something...big." His fist still partially covering his mouth, he tilted his head remotely to the right, as though picking up a better reception there, the crease of concentration in his brow transforming to concern, perhaps bordering on fear. "Lot's of big...things. Aeesu-jin. They're Aeesu-jin, I'm sure of it." The distraction of describing what he felt as he felt it saved him from pending panic.

Freeza, his fingers nervously digging their opposite arm's elbows, decided that the description '_big_', when referring to chi, meant strong. But _how_ strong? Stronger than Freeza? Stronger than the gaki? Stronger than Bojack?

"Heng." The boy spoke from behind his fist, his face now sinking into foreboding certainty. 

The single word put it all into its macabre context. Heng. _That_ strong. The corners of Freeza's eyes wrinkled in inbred fear. Heng.

Gohan continued to tap at his mouth and chin with his index knuckle, his legs mechanically separating into a sturdier stance, his body set taunt on only his toes, hunkering lower to the ground to center himself better with gravity. His tail, rising to the level of his shoulders, a backwards question mark, suddenly changed its natural course as the boy, instead, whipped it tightly around the boy's narrow waist.

"Where?" Freeza dropped his normally sharp tongue for the sake of survival. Things were suddenly not looking quite so easy as he had assumed they would be.

The boy blinked, looked left, his lips moving inaudibly, counting quietly to himself. Then, his pupils shrinking by order of his Saiya-jin nature, he blinked, looked right, lips moving, counting. Then he looked up, seeing things in the levels above them that Freeza could not see. His countenance growing paler, his body shrinking closer to the tiles under his feet defensively.

"They're...," face bloodless, now, white as a sheet, pupils pin-dots of ink, his chin smudged with blood sliding from a split in his lip, "They're everywhere. _Swarming_."

He looked like a doomsday prophet.

The boy's hand went to the communicator fastened to his ear, wanting immediately to know Sunow was okay and aware of the danger.

He didn't even get to say a word before he heard the static-filled, yet audible voice of Sunow in his own ear:

"Son Gohan?" the voice said, "Gohan? Can you hear me? I think we've found it. I think... we've found the main computer."

----------------------------

The bedroom of the capsule house is lined with soft gold light as the sun filters in through the windows, flirting across the walls and furniture like merry birds at wing.

Lying on the bed, where Son Gohan had slept so many times, is Henning, the sheets pulled up over his shoulders, his face pressed against the pillow where he can still smell the presense of Gohan, his eyes closed. He sleeps, napping easily in the home of the jewel he would soon have, sweet and innocent and saged and frightened. And maybe, on the momentus day in which it would be presented, the object of his fascination, dear, dear beautiful little Saiya-jin Gohan, would have a tempting line of crimson blood sliding down the side of his narrow little face, to drip off his pointed chin.

The Tahch-jin dreams of such delicious things as he sleeps, his hands resting on the pillow to feel the presence the little Saiya-jin has left for him. 

_The boy's arms are fastened above his head, against a wall of darkness that could not be seen, for it did not matter to the dreamer. All the dreamer knows or cares to consider is the shape of the boy, who, his shirt and boots removed, hangs motionlessly, his pale bare chest expanding each time he inhales, then, each time he breaths outward, a whimper also escaps his lips. This is __**his**__ Son Gohan, the dreamer is sure. His, his, his. His to play with and savor and hurt and touch and caress and break and destroy and kill_... _Not necessarily in that order._

On the outside, the Henning's colorless lips creet open in a sleepy smile. He sighs peacefully, perhaps even snort-laughing in his sleep, and turning over, nuzzling his pillow, drooling a little until, even in sleep, his pale tongue glides over his lips to clean them. Tears of joy escape his eyes.

_The dreamer stands over the boy with a hot branding iron, shaped into an intricately designed 'H', to stand for 'Henning'. It glows red hot with scalding heat. Rising the burning brand, so hot that a thin line of smoke drifts off it, the dreamer speaks. "Look, Gohan, see? I'm marking you my own. My very own." But as before, the boy does not raise his head to look, and he remains silent. He does not speak. The dreamer spits on the hot brand, watches it sizzle and crackle, then carefully presses it against the boy's lower abdomen, maybe harder than necessary, just beneath his right breast. The boy cries out as the brand hisses loudly, a high-pitched "ssssss!" The dreamer, aware only now that this is indeed a dream, makes a point to remember to do this when he has the real Son Gohan._

Outside the capsule house stand three Aeesu-jin, two of them arguing with a third, the guard of the capsule house, about something very important. The two arguers have just returned from their search across the planet, they are out of breath from running back to camp, and insist they have information Henning would like to hear. The guard Aeesu-jin insists that 'Henning-sama' be left to sleep. 

Inside, the Tahch-jin murmers in slumber, unaware of the commotion outside.

_This is the dreamer's ultimate moment of triumph, the time he has lived to see ever since laying his eyes on the beautiful little Saiya-jin boy with the long furry tail and feathery dark hair. The breaking of Son Gohan. The boy, still against the wall, hands still fastened over his head, his knees bound together, is trying to gather his knees to his chest, to protect himself, but is too feeble to do so. The branded 'H' on his abdomen is red and raw, the smell of burned meat fills the air. The dreamer kneals before the boy and digs two sharp fingers into the burn, making the boy utter sounds of pain. "Are you afraid, Gohan?" The boy tries not to answer, his teeth clenching together to stop his tongue. "Are you? Are you?" Insistance will work this time. His fingers worm against the wound, making it weep heavily._

_The boy begins to cry. How long had the dreamer been doing this that he finally got such delicious tears? Weeks? Months? Years? It didn't matter. The sight was soul-shatteringly perfect._

_Leaning in closer, his mouth inches from the boy's ear, fingers digging into the the burn, other hand resting against the hot skin of his cheek, feeling the moisture of tears. Whispering. "Are_..._ you_... _afraid?" A profound silence follows, a whimper of despair escapes the boy's torn lips, filled with such raw emotion, and his lean body sags in final surrender._

_"Yes. I am afraid." The voice is soft and tremulous._

A sob of bliss escapes the sleeping Henning's lips. The dream is so real for him. 

Outside the capsule house, the guard Aeesu-jin, his arms crossed authoritarianly, is begining to nod his head as the two sentry explain their find. Perhaps, indeed, his nod says, this is worthy of waking up the Boss.

_"Admit that you lose."_

_The boy's head lowers, his eyes hiding behind his hair, tears glittering off his cheeks. Grab his chin, make him look up. His ink-black eyes seem sunken in, weary, swollen from crying. They plead, wordlessly, for the dreamer to stop. They beg him not to force an answer. Beg the dreamer to leave him to die. The dreamer revels in the sight, hoping it's just as beautiful when it really happens. He strikes the boy in the face with a keen white fist, staining the white hairs with red. Still gripping the boy's chin, he demands eye contact. "Admit that you lose."_

_A whisper, "I_..._ I_..._"_

_The dreamer leans in closer to hear the words_...

"Henning-sama!!"

The barking voice of the Aeesu-jin guard shattered the Tahch-jin's dream.

Rolling over, Henning almost snarled ferally, barely finding the strength to catch himself, before he asked, fully awake, "What is it?"

"Sir," the Aeesu-jin said, shrinking back at the sharpness of the Boss's tone, "One of the search parties... they think they've found foot prints belonging to Son Gohan. We-"

Henning was already on his feet, pulling on his second boot, "Take me there." He tugged on his cape as he went through the door, following the guard to speak to the two Aeesu-jin responsible for the find.

The dream, he swore to himself, _would_ someday come true.

Determination was a strong Tahch-jin trait.

----------------------------

Even with phenomenal Aeesu-jin technology, the main computer was huge.

In the center of the room it stood, spanning from floor to ceiling in a large, seven sided column, each side lit with a series of monitors lining the top of it. The rest: a virtual wall of gauges, toggles, switches, keys, levers, buttons, blinking lights, printout papers, controls and a vast variety of other forms of inter computer control and manipulation. 

It was, for the record, Bojack that discovered it, nearing uncounted door number thirty two. When the door refused to open after he thumbed the control, he tore it out of it's frame with a single, sinewy hand. He didn't bother considering that there might be sensitive equipment inside.

Seeing through the mangled doorway, the Biraju-jin blinked his brooding eyes, snorted, amused, and uttered a single word-- "Hey!" --and Sunow and Garlic were there, peering into the room around him.

The Aeesu-jin pushed past him, his thick, stubby tail raised at just an inquisitive angle, to inspect the find; the gremlin entered behind Bojack, half-way through the door, his spine stiffened. He spun around, entering the room backwards, his eyes widening under his prominent brow as his inner sense in chi picked up the approaching Heng and all his men (though he, himself, was unfamiliar with Heng's particular chi).

He just knew that this was bad.

He turned, straightening his cape nervously, to voice a warning of the approaching danger, but Sunow's pale hand was already to his communicator. He was talking:

"Son Gohan? Can you hear me? I think we've found it. I think...," an Aeesu-jin smirk of impending victory creasing his lips, "we've found the main computer."

Grinning, he continued to hold his hand agianst the communicator, his eyes studying the far wall as he heard the boy on the other end saying something that even Garlic could not hear clearly. Slowly, Sunow's grin slipped down to a thin line of worry, "What? Are you sure?" He looked at Garlic, a question in his eyes. The gremlin nodded grimly; the gaki had saved him the trouble of having to say anything. "Where are...," he became silent, listening again, "Why now? Why now that... Right. Right, I understand. Be careful."

His hand fell to his side. The conversation was over. And everything was upside down.

"What's wrong _now_?" Bojack hissed through his canines, "What did that supid bozu do?"

Sunow exhaled and, sullenly, began tapping at the keys of the discovered computer, knowing he had a task to do, but convinced it was half-way impossible, "It was nothing Son Gohan did."

"Don't give me that crap, the kid is cursed. No matter where he goes, trouble always finds him. He did _something_ wrong, even if it was just surviving birth." Bojack's concern for his own well-fare was kindling. Again he asked, "So, what's wrong _now_?"

"Heng," Sunow said slowly, attempting to come up with a logical place to start his collosal task, "Heng has entered the equasion... and he's brought reinforcements."

The colorfulness of the string of words that escaped Bojack's lips would curl hair.

He turned, his great mane of lava hair swinging behind him, and settled his potent glare on Garlic, "You."

The gremlin settled into a sturdier position on his feet in case the Biraju-jin seemed fit to attack.

"You," Bojack said again, this time pointing, "If things go sour, and knowing the kid's luck they will, I want to be able to keep myself alive. Take me to the kid, I can't trust him to keep himself alive."

Garlic, though loath to deny the Biraju-jin what he asked, had no choice to answer with truth, "I can't feel him right now. His chi is hidden." When Bojack's face began to darken, he found himself adding--though he had no clue the notion had even come to him yet--, "However... Okay, I've found Freeza. With any luck, the gaki will be with him."

Bojack nodded and exited the room without further adue, Garlic hurrying his short legs after him to lead the way, leaving Sunow alone to work desperately at the computer.

The Aeesu-jin didn't bother mentioning it, but he felt that splitting up would be the last thing they should do right now, when sticking together and enjoying the safety of numbers would benefit them the greatest.

His tail a loop of anxious worry behind him, he continued typing.

**To be continued......**


	34. CM34

Contradicting Mission

Part 34

Here was yet another wonderful example of the great comedy of errors that all but consistantly befell Son Gohan.

He led the way, now; his enemy/ally, Freeza, following close behind him, as he tracked Sunow's chi, avoiding the numerous and dangerious powers emiting from the Heng assault, all the while wishing that Freeza could suddenly, magically, know how to hide his accursed and loud chi. It made the boy feel exposed, vulnerable, as though, instead of an Aeesu-jin, he were being folled by a shining red beacon that exclaimed "Here I am, come, please, and destroy me" 

At his destination, the area Sunow occupied, the boy felt Bojack's chi heighten and then begin moving. It was a delibarate and quick movement. The Biraju-jin was moving away from Sunow and toward Gohan and Freeza... Too deliberate. The blue giant had probably employed Garlic as guide to lead the way to the beacon-that-was Freeza. Looking for Gohan.

Perhaps it was paranoia on the boy's part. He did not know. But past experiances showed that in a time of crisis, Bojack liked to have Gohan close by. Protecting his investments. Keeping Gohan alive to save himself.

Bojack was no doubt looking after his own best interests.

And looking for Gohan.

Dangers pressing in from all sides. Like the crushing walls of a room. Clausterphobia.

A tinge of rising panic.

Can't breath!

"Can't you lower your chi at all?" The boy could not restrain himself from inquiring of Freeza, his hands tense at his sides, his tail twined protectively about his waist, nervously fingering the furry section that passed over his stomach. But then he checked himself -- such a bad habit touching his tail had become -- and ceased, clasping his hands behind his back, instead, to keep them from fidgiting. Nevertheless, the end of his tail twisted around his unseen wrist.

He'd shown enough weakness already. Enough fear. He wouldn't again. Not in front of Freeza. Not in front of anyone.

"Baka," Freeza said, nervous himself, but just as stubborn as the Saiya-jin boy about hiding his own fears, "My chi shouldn't matter. Did you not say youself that there were thousands of other Aeesu-jin swarming this concentrated area? It'd be very unlikely that anyone would be able to pick mine out of the mass you've described, even if they weren't using the primitive chi detectors they have now."

He wanted so much to sound sure of himself. To sound comfortable and confident in his own power. But his tought-as-nails Aeesu-jin pride was trembling like a delicate, tremulous leaf in the wind. Any other Aeesu-jin might notice that the mighty Freeza's face was paler, more drawn than normal. He was very much afraid.

It was a waisted cherade to hide his fear, however; Gohan was hardly aware the Aeesu-jin had even spoken at all. 

He was too busy watching, following, Bojack's chi with both his eyes and other sensing facilities, his head slowly rotating at he neck as he "watched" the Biraju-jin make a turn, storm a ways in a restrained run (restrained, no doubt, so Garlic could keep up and continue leading the way like a blue-skinned blood hound.) Bojack's chi paused, flaming yet brighter, as it encountered the chi of three unknown Aeesu-jin. A battle erupted, briefly, but ended hardly before it even had a chance to begin. 

The Aeesu-jin chi winked out, one by rapid one.

Bojack kept coming.

Following Freeza's chi.

Looking for Gohan.

Gohan almost found himself asking, again, if Freeza might not lower his chi, but caught his tongue before it ran its course. He brutally berated himself for acting childishly. This was a time of battle, forethought, simultaneous offence and defence, neither getting so far ahead that the other could not catch up to it. A time when a sharp mind and lightning decisions and reflexes would be all that stood between him and a bitter fate.

He did not have time to deal with Bojack!

"Hey, where are you going?" Freeza's voice. Trying to sound authoritive. Ghosted with panic.

The question brought Gohan out of his mental strangulation, and he finally remembered to breath again. He almost asked, "What do you mean? I'm not going anywhere." But then he noticed that he'd already turned his back to Freeza and begun, his body moving without conscious orders from his brain, to depart. 

His response also came without mental consultation, "I'll be back in a minute." His voice was non-commital, he noticed. "You stay here. Bojack and Garlic are on their way. You would be safer with them."

He must have sent so many mental suggestions, pleadings, really, that Freeza did not question him further.

This is not running away, he tried to assure himself. This is just survival. Getting rid of the distractions that could get you killed. Fulfilling a mission as quick and efficient as possible.

His pace was a run, using his perceptions to avoid confrontations with the numerous Aeesu-jin pressing in around him. Running not because he was in a hurry, but because on some subconscious, primitive level, he was sure he was being pursued.

Not running away. Not fleeing. Surviving.

Feet pounding against the ground. He ran on.

What are you...a coward?!

* * *

Behind his back, Joru Le'Armont's hands shook as he rubbed them together under his cape. Anxious. Mourning the lost fur on his bald knuckles. Worn bare from the friction of his fingers.

The sentry accompanying him were uneasy. Their chi detectors had alerted them that, in their short time of absence, the fortress had become over-run by an unknown but numerous force. It was realized too late, however -- also through the use of their chi detectors -- that their original escape route had been cut off by a great number of impressive, imposing chi. 

And find out they did by tracking the low, lone chi of a green (the word used both in literal and figurative connuctations) Aeesu-jin; Heng-loyal, and seperated from his platoon. A sitting duck. Caught, it took the sentries little effort to convince him to expell all he knew and, more importantly for the sake of the Tahch-jin curiosity, who he was abroad on the order of.

Heng. 

Heng, the very target the Tahch-jin had orginally come to this planet to destroy. Who they spent countless hours seeking, engaged in an inch-by-inch search for. Waiste of time. All of the meticulous planning turning up nothing, and all they had done was stop searching for him, and he had come to them.

To destroy them, actually.

It would have been a perfect example of mutual loathing -- the Tahch-jin wanting to rid the universe of Heng, Heng wanting to obliterate the Tahch-jin from the face of the planet -- were there not one problem.

Joru was entirely done with wanting anyone dead.

And that included Heng. That included the entire Aeesu-jin people.

He'd seen Son Gohan, a boy less than half his age; and in that youth, he'd seen the amount of damage over-exposure to death can do to one, even in the short number of years the boy had been alive. Though no physical effects existed, the damage was evident in his old, old eyes, aged and weary and full of (what else could you call it?) full of death. And with that, Joru decided that if someone as innocent as Son Gohan could be marred by killing, how could someone with an adult-sized life-time of even minor sins hope to escape such acts with their soul intact?

And indeed, he'd furthermore decided he did not have the right to decide who lived and who died. He could not really pass judgement on anyone but himself and -- in his current state of mind -- he'd concluded that he, himself, was a practicer of gross acts. Most of all, his worst transgression: turning a blind eye to his brother's torturous and brutal killings he'd inflicted on so many. What saddened Joru the most was the knowledge that he would continue to error in that area. Especially in the near future when Son Gohan was finally siezed.

He'd been soul searching during his trip to the Underground. And for once his mind was not clouded with false self-rightousness and over-confidence in his personal inner strength. He discovered that he did not have the power to defy Henning again. He was too afraid. When the boy was reobtained, it would be permanantly. Joru saw into himself well enough to know that he would bend to his brother's wishes. He would ignore the loud, then quieter, then death screams of Son Gohan as Henning toyed with him until the life had entirely left his tiny little body.

He would not interfere with his frightening brother again. The boy. The polite, good boy. The quiet, bright, troubled boy... The boy would die. A horrendous death where his pleas for mercy would only heighten his tormentor's determination to do worse, lusting for more anguished cries.

Joru trembled for more reasons than one.

A war cry echoed down the hall, and suddenly, the Tahch-jin and his escort found themselves under seige as a large tidal wave of Heng-loyal Aeesu-jin swept over them.

* * *

Through the tiled walls, large boots pounding the floor hard enough to send the halls vibrating at his sides, following the speedy little cloaked form of Garlic Junior, Bojack fumed for reasons not entirely within his understanding. It was a quiet anger, stemming from more than one other contributing emotion.

Fear. Fear of his own death. Bitterness toward the small gremlin that skittered expertly ahead of him, leading the way to Freeza -- and hopefully the kusobozu -- with well honed Earthly senses. And beside the recognizable, understood feelings, the Biraju-jin felt a queer sense of impending closure. A cold shadow of ending that grew ever closer; that everything, or something, was going to end soon. He didn't know why he felt this, but through the long, numerous years Bojack had lived, he'd long since learned to trust in his foresight.

That didn't mean he had to like what it told him.

Most of all, however, he brewed within his great blue chest a seething anamosity toward the key to his undoing. His weakness. The means of his destruction. The trouble-proned brat: Son Gohan.

Oh, how Bojack hated him.

Hated his innocent face and his piercing eyes and that look that crosses his face as he enters the heart of a battle. The expression that was nothing like the normal face of Son Gohan. The hard, hatefull expression that he bore in his lethal, golden form, the form he had used to kill -- kill -- Bojack. He had used that face when he'd last addressed Bojack, outside, before entering the Underground.

As the feeling of conclusion continued to grow nearer, the mission coming closer to its final chapter, Bojack was becoming increasingly aware of his own -- second -- impending death. And it had been Son Gohan to construct this plan, this plan to begin this ending. Son Gohan. The gaki. Who had already killed him once, with his own small, bare hands. He'd come up with the concluding plan. So, as indirect as it was, it was Son Gohan's fault he would die this second time, even if it was only by completing this mission.

He had no doubt the Kami Larkas would stick him back into Hell once this was over. He hated Kami's.

But not as much as he hated that boy.

The intensity in which Bojack longed to be able to murder that bozu was beyond all dialects. How he longed to be able to wring his scrawny neck, or to return the treatment he'd recieved, to lodge his mighty fist deep into the boy's stomach with the power to drive it out the other side, tearing through his soft, young intestines, feeling his hot, red blood drip down his arm, off his elbow. 

The mere daydream of doing it drove Bojack half mad as he plowed along behind Garlic, and he mentally went over then gripping the boy's gaping hole and tearing the his small body clear in half length-wise. Then shredding the remains, yanking his head off, ripping his body into a hundred gory little parts.

Surely then that brightness in the boy's eyes, that acursed cleam of cleverness, would cease to shine. His eyes would glaze in death, turning gray and lifeless. His little head would roll limply between the shoulders on his lifeless body.

Bojack continued to run.

He could hardly wait to find Son Gohan again. 

It was all that boy's fault.

Damn him.

* * *

Forester clung vertically to the rocky wall of a mountainous hill, his reptilian body flat against the stone, both his hands and his feet naturally finding grip at his sides, his tail balancing him in his feat against gravity. His entire form was frozen, flat against the stones, half-hidden in a dark shadow seeping out from under an over-hanging craige. A sentient lizard, in his element. Though the trait had all but vanished along his line of evolution, his skin still faded slightly to readjust, forming better camoflage for his body agains the rock. His still-stuby horns only adding dimension, the irregularity of texture around him.

He was nearly invisible, hidden in the shadows of plain sight.

It was a good thing, too, for less than thirty yards beneath him stood the figure the Aeesu-jin boy had immidiately identified as Henning. A Tahch-jin. A being of uncounted cruelty. The man that wanted to kill Gohan.

To Forester, he didn't look so tough. 

The fifty-or-so bulky Aeesu-jin that accompanied him, however, looked identifiably lethal.

Forester trembled.

"Sir, look here!" A lean, sinewy Aeesu-jin called to the Tahch-jin, "See this? These are foot prints we assume to be the Saiya-jin boy's!"

The silent, observing Aeesu-jin boy held his breath as Henning first surveyed the landscape, his eyes seeming to pause for half a second on the spot in which Forester clung, before directing his attention to the indicated prints in the dust at his feet. His pale, lightly furred hands against the soil, traced a long finger around a print, before he began crab-walking along behind the prints, then dropped down to his knees to craw along behind the prints.

Finally, he sank to his belly, one arm bending under his head to create a cusion for his chin. He sighed in a suspisiously loving manner, blowing up a small spume of dust with his breath, his other hand tenderly carressing another of the prints.

What struck Forester almost as maniacal as the Tahch-jin's behavior was that none of his men seemed particularly surprised by it.

"It's him." Henning all but purred, rubbing his chin against the soil where Gohan had, indeed, previously stood. "My little Gohan. He was here. And not too long ago." Finally, he pulled his tall, long-limbed body up to his knees, then to his feet. He addressed the troop with him, "We're catching up!" His eyes studied the prints yet further, "It looks almost as though, from the purpose of his step and the direction that he's going, he would he heading for..."

Then his golden eyes widened. He began breathing harder and harder. Forester hugged even tighter to the stone beneath his feet and fingers. This Tahch-jin radiated danger. Even his own Aeesu-jin sentries backed away from him a few feet as his normally white face began to darken.

Henning tore his hat off his head and threw it to the ground, "No, no, NO!!" He grabbed the nearest Aeesu-jin to him by the shoulders and shook him, "I didn't see this!! Why, why, why!?! Why didn't I-"

"Sir, what?! What is it?!" The Aeesu-jin yelped, half afraid, more startled.

Henning released him, stomped at the ground, pounding two fists at the sides of his head, perhaps to grab his ears, perhaps to pull at his hair, and shrieked in an all-out tantrum, kicking at the footprints left behind by Gohan, "He's going back!! Son Gohan is going back!"

The senty Aeesu-jin got it immidiatly, as the realization that the Tahch-jin fortress was virtually abandoned struck them simultaneously.

Immidiate action broke out.

Aeesu-jin were barking into communicators, others were sweeping the area, searching for further signs Son Gohan might have left behind. Most of the Aeesu-jin, however, began to run nearly in circles, desperately seeking something to do, but not sure what. All the while, Henning continued howling and storming, stamping his dusty boots, his vocabulary growing from comprehensive to vulgar as he began swearing oaths of horrible vengence and "harsh punishment when he got his hands on that boy again".

Forester decided he'd seen enough.

Instinctively keeping to the shadows he felt more comfortably in, his body moving like a liquid along the craiges.

On the other side of the rocky hill, he found Eesei, where he had left her.

"For'ster, what-?"

"C'mon, we have to get out of here. Now."

The little Aeesu-jin girl did not argue, but climbed willingly into into his arms to be whisked away to safety.

* * *

The proof of the intensity of Son Gohan's thorough distraction was soon displayed as he made his own personal way to Sunow's chi-and-person. Tracking Bojack's movements as he is chi reached Freeza's -- relief, that -- the the Biraju-jin's chi flamed red as he found that Freeza was alone. 

The boy, running now, his black boots pat-patting on the tiles under him, his arms mechanically pumping in rhythm at his sides, in step with the poundig of his heart and the impact of his feet with the ground, his eyes focused pointedly, severely forward, yet not really seeing, the walls vanishing into his pereferal vision as he actually heard the air he was sprinting through whistle past his acute ears, his tail spanning free behind him...

He was outside of himself. Watching and feeling but not there. Too caught up in the movement of his own bodily self, the beating of his wild heart, the tinge of rage he felt in his chest, boiling up at himself, at everything, he was a piston, he was a jet, he was going to make them, who every they were, them, the ones that made him suffer, them! They would pay.

Breathing hard, rounding a corner, his tail a sharp arc behind him --

He crashed into an Aeesu-jin.

The boy's abruptly canceled momentum sent them both reeling into the great mess of Aeesu-jin that just happened to be behind the first Aeesu-jin-obstruction. A who fleet of them.

And the entire mass of them were sent sprawling in a great tangle of arms and legs and wildly thrashing tails, in the midst of which swam Gohan.

Panic! No open spaces! Can't breath!

The boy rolled free, instincts flaring like a thousand burning stars, quickly retrieving his tail and returning it to the safety of his waiste. He was on his feet as the first Aeesu-jin managed to scramble free of the great tangle to see what it was that had crashed so suddenly into him and his squad.

Sudden recognition.

"It's-"

Eyes snapped from the heaving mess of limbs.

"The Saiya-jin boy -- get off my tail!"

"It's Son Gohan!"

"Kill 'im!"

Gohan stood before them for half a second, his person lowered into a flawlessly tight, defensive stance. Both his arms raised to strike or parry. Looking fit to fight to the death. To kill and, no doubt, be killed.

But then, on a raving, more prudent, second thought, whilst the Aeesu-jin only began to get back to their feet, he turned and ran.

Not running away. Not fleeing. Surviving.

It wasn't what Tousan would have done. He would have stayed and faught to the death and maintained the stainless honor that was his character.

But Tousan is dead, said the unkind side of Gohan. Dead with his stainless honor. But our honor is already spotty and stained with blood. The least we could do is succeed and save reality rather than try to save something that is beyond repair.

He had been prepared to fight and kill.

That didn't mean he'd harbored the anxious ambition to.

To be continued....


	35. CM35

I cannot appologize for the two month wait between last part and this part. I needed a vacation, and I got one. At first, I was cram reviewing my German, and then for two weeks (winter vacation) I was IN Germany, living with a German family who didn't speak much English, so I had to keep myself German-oriented (thus, I couldn't exactly spend time writing a fanfic in English!) And then, I admit, I was just lacking the ambition to write for a while. Reviews were lousy ("ur fic is gudwrite mor soon plz an email me nex time u update"). So I wasn't exactly sitting on a raging volcano.

I think I'm out of the deep blue for now, at least, though there's no real telling...

Also, for some odd-ass reason, ffn refuses to recognize when I use italics or bold fonts, so all my emphasises and inner reflections are sort of fucked up. It would almost be better if you read them at my web page, where they're in their true form.

* * *

Contradicting Mission

Part 35

Though he almost knew the halls of the Tahch-jin fortress by heart, Joru Le'Armont felt completely lost.

His escorts were surely all dead, though he did not know. After they had been overswept by the strange Aeesu-jins, all of which wore gold sashes across their chests, Joru's stomach for courage shrank and twisted and he did what would surely shame his entire family. He ran for his life, blindly and without thought, leaving his escorts to fight and die as fate so took it. And without consulting rational thought, he ran to a place he felt safe.

He'd run to Henning's room.

Sweat slicked and feeling as though he were going to vomit, he stumbled into the bathroom and washed his palms and forehead and neck in his brother's sink. Toweling off his face in the mirror, he looked into his own eyes, and tried to look for something there besides cowardice. Shame shifted to irritation with himself. Which, in turn, shifted to anger at the situation in general.

And then his tiny sense of courage began to regrow, like a sprout, and he felt an urge to get out there and do something to make a difference, though he did not know how or why or for whom. He just knew he couldn't hid in his sibling's room, curling up in the corner as he was literally tempted to do and smooth out the few stray strands of fur left on the backs of his hands and just pretend that everything was okay.

His head was growing hot and humid under his hat, and he removed it, flinging it to his brother's bed, to run his fingers through the streak of perspiration-damp blue hair that ran like a crest over the top of his head. He shook out his arms, removed his outer cape and robe, down to an easier, less cumbersome garb.

Then he went looking for a weapon.

It was in behind Hennings bed-side desk that Joru found his brother's Chah't scepter. He despised the thing, knowing that an uncountable number of Henning's victims had suffered its touch.

But he needed it. So he took it up, feeling through his sensitive fingers the pain and fear that had come from those it kissed, and, even more despicable, the amusement and joy that Henning had felt as he used it.

Joru thumbed it on, every hair on his body standing up for half a second as the tool hummed to life.

And, armed, he ventured out again, though he did not know for what destination.

* * *

The burning that grazed Gohan's arm was probably chi. It probably hurt, too, were he to bother feeling it. He was also pretty sure that when his back crashed down against the floor, it was because a three-toed foot had slammed full-tilt into his face. It probably hurt, too. Were he in a different mind, he might even be rolling on the ground to put the fire lighting up across his suit out.

But in all truth, Gohan really didn't care at the moment.

He had long-since passed being merely 'tired' of being pushed around.

He was, if one would excuse the phrase, fighting mad.

He hadn't been able to run far from the pursuing Aeesu-jin party before being overtaken, though certainly not from lack of his own speed. Rather, the Aeesu-jin had simply more experience in running the tunnels of the underground. They'd branched off, split up, then circled in upon him like a pack of hunting wolves. Attacked from all sides, the option of flight erased, a queer sense of panic overcome him, sending him into the state of an animal that, when cornered, fights with the ferocity of the very devil.

As sick as it was, he almost was glad to be fighting people weaker than himself. Bojack these assailants were not. Even as they struck him, they fell to his feet from his blows. His two small boy-feet, and his two small boy-fists and his flying knees and his bony elbows and his rampant chi. They were lethal. Desperation gave him power, and his peculiar fighting mood loaned him the ambition to dish out more than he would have were he in a quieter or more melancholy mood. 

He was into it. He felt it in him. The burning. The feral, reptilian thrill of the fight. He needed this. He liked this. 

And just see who tries to take it from him.

His speed and size were his greatest advantages.

His lithe body -- far too lean than what would be healthy for either a human or Saiya-jin of his age -- all but slipped around the flying, dangerous limbs that sought to strike him, and it was proving that more often the Aeesu-jin ended up harming one another far more than the boy, enraging them into less coordinated attacks on both Gohan and one another. There just wasn't enough room in those narrow halls to hold everyone. 

The only real individual that could really move through the shifting, moving, narrow spaces between the bodies was Gohan, on account for his size. 

And he exploited it. Twisting his limber little form through the crooks of armpits, to slither between ankles, to duck under tails; half the time he wasn't aware which way was up or down, or if he was flying or jumping or ricocheting or some queer mix of them all. 

It like therapy. All his anxiety, all his hatred and fear went into his fighting. He was an artist of combat, inspired by enflaming passion, delivering his attacks without hesitation or second thought as, yes, his would-be attackers perished in oft times messy impacts or bursts of chi.

It wasn't that he wasn't getting injured himself. He just was or chose to be oblivious to it. He didn't acknowledge it when an Aeesu-jin, trying to jerk him off balance, tore off his entire right sleeve, nor did he care to notice when a long, bloody whip-mark tore through his body suit and across his abdomen. He was burned in more than once place, bloodied, with both his and his attacker's blood, his suit almost stained to the point that its original color was lost.

And then two things happened at nearly the exact same time that threw the whole fight off.

From one end of the hall, Heng suddenly appeared, and stood back for but a moment and watched the fray, as one would watch a fight among wild dogs. Watching and waiting for an opening through which he could reach through with his long tail and smite the Saiya-jin boy. But then he looked past them, his face darkening with an even deeper hatred.

For the second thing then occurred.

On the opposite side of the fray as where Heng stood, Bojack appeared, Freeza and Garlic at his heels.

Brooding Biraju-jin eyes met flaming Aeesu-jin eyes. An unspoken message passed between them, We settle this now. Indeed. And a new fray erupted that literally blew the other away.

Bojack met Heng midway, right above the very place Gohan and his attackers stood, and for a split second, the world seemed to freeze as the two's chi met. 

And then they merged, and an explosion rocked the Underground down to the depths of the Lower Class.

* * *

A loud battle was also waging across and lower in the fortress, near the entrance of the Tahch-jin's domain. There, Henning had just entered, backed up by nearly his entire army, with the rest coming as rapidly as possible.

Henning could not wait for his men to secure the compound. Everything was falling apart about him, including the ceiling, of which chunks were continually falling onto his hat; damage, unbeknownst to him, caused by the two-man war between Bojack and Heng some seven stories up.

Leaving his men to fend for themselves, Henning slipped around the battle, pressing his tall figure into the shadows, and journeyed on ahead, eyes ever watchful for danger, or more importantly, for perhaps the flash of a furry brown tail, or a glimpse of dark hair.

He kept his hat pulled low over his eyes.

* * *

Sunow threw a stack of unused papers across the room, some of which hit the wall, though most slipped into the air and flew about the room in a busy rustle of movement. He didn't feel better for it.

He had no clue what he was doing.

Again he hunched over the computer, and began his dogged attempts to break through the security of the Tahch-jin computer, but yet again he ran into one wall after another, tearing down each barrier so messily that four new ones cropped up to continue hindering him. He tried phony passwords, but as each failed, figured that they must either be random codes or in the Tahch-go language.

Either way, they were impossibly to guess.

The only real break through he'd had was finding where the program Gohan had told him of was. And this problem was solved quite by luck when, in sheer frustration, the Aeesu-jin father had typed into the password slot "Gohan, where are you?!" and it turned out to be, indeed, the password (which, he assumed, was Henning's personal code) and though after that he tried hundreds of variations, and many uses of Son Gohan's name, they all must have been slightly off, for they could not break through.

Sunow paused for a moment and leaned back away from the console, wiping the back of his wrist over his face to rid it of the sweat. He was terrified for himself, yes, but even stronger was his concern for the Saiya-jin boy, of whose fight he heard quite clearly through the spiffy new communicators. It did little to aid his ill mood. Hearing the raw cries of battle through one ear, and through the other the infinitely patient, expectant hum of the computer, he felt as though half his head was being torn asunder, while the other was slowly melting.

His concentration was shot. He was infuriated and worried and felt cornered and small and helpless and, oddly, a little bored in front of this task.

His back hurt from hunching over the buttons for so long.

He was no hacker.

But still his fingers continued working away, though they knew not what they were doing.

* * *

Heng had a slight size advantage. Bojack, not small on any standards or life, had never battled someone as large as the Aeesu-jin dictator. It was something new to him, one of the few new things he'd come across for quite a few years (except, of coarse, for the particular boy who had the ability to alter his hair color and power in mere seconds...)

But it was only size. Of the other sparse advantages the Aeesu-jin had, were only his tough old body's ability to withstand even the Biraju-jin's mighty impacts, and his rampant inner fire to not lose to this foe.

Bojack had everything else. Power, speed, agility; and unlike Heng, who had remained in his thrown for years rarely training, he was at his body's peak capacity.

And he, also, harbored the stubborn refusal to relinquish victory.

So they rage, and they battled, any obstacle appearing in their way instantly getting obliterated into fine dust.

Gohan decided this was his time to slip out. The raging chi was battering to his mind, still partially on Saiya-jin fighting-mode, though already it was seeping back to his more human side that insisted he preserve himself, elbowing past the Aeesu-jin that had so few minutes ago been zealously attacking him (now standing in silence as they watched, uncomprehending, the fight between their lord and the mighty blue alien). They didn't try to stop him.

As he began to remove himself from the scene, though, he paused to look back a moment, his eyes the only in the room save the battalions themselves that actually saw all the details of the battle. This was a battle to the death, there was no doubt. And Heng had more power than any Aeesu-jin Gohan had ever come across before.

What if Bojack was killed?

Then Cell would -- shut the hell up. The unfriendly voice. Just shut up and stop thinking and stop thinking until this is over, you moron! And with this wash of inner words came the reason; there was nothing he could do as he was. His only hope of stopping this, of stopping everything, of ever finishing this and getting home and ever being happy again lay in another direction.

Be it from injuries or severe emotional stress or confusion or sickness of heart or body: he wanted to vomit. His guts were churning fitfully, his mouth tasted like bile. He was so hungry. So tired, and, wait, was that pain on his body? He'd only now begun to feel it, the burned and blackened skin, the slick, sticky red slipping from under his nostrils. He felt like he was shriveling, drying up; his flesh felt as though it were flaking off, his stomach as though it would implode, vanishing inwards until there was nothing left of him in existence.

So he began trekking, jogging, leaving Bojack and Heng and the Aeesu-jin far behind, his mind feeling as though it were cracking in half within his brain, unsure if he was heading in the right direction. He could not feel Sunow in the state he was in, but feeling as though he must have action, action, action or he would die, die, die, because all he heard was instinct while reason was being burned in replacement of food, and he heard the Saiya-jin call for fight! and the human call for flight! and so his chi was gathered about him to project him in a direction he did not know nor cared to because all he was a machine of destruction and he meant to destroy, though yet he knew not what...

In such a state, surprise was not one of the things he was capable of when he felt a strong pressure appear on his tail, near the tip, although he felt a very real sense of primal terror as feeling left his body and he began to fall to his knees.

He was aware of one thing, which was being yelled at him of all of his mental council:

Someone has my tail...

And then he heard a laughter and voice that made his blood run cold.

"Ho! My dear little Gohan, I've been looking for you. But I knew you were meant to be mine. And now you are. All mine."

The voice of Henning.

A long, white arm caught him around the waist before he could fall, and lifted him back up, pressing him against tall, narrow body of the Tahch-jin monstrosity, the greedy fingers pressing against his ribs, just beneath his right breast, nails digging in as though they were starved wolves devouring a downed prey. 

Through his partially opened eyes, Gohan saw his hair sway as the Tahch-jin breathed over his shoulder a shuddered breath of pleasure, murmuring, "I missed the feel of you..."

Were he able, Gohan would have screamed in sudden pain for, though the rest of his body was numb and cold and terrible, the iron grip Henning had on his tail suddenly began to feel as though it were burning, for, though he did not know it, the Tahch-jin, in his ecstasy to feel more of the boy, was digging his thumbnail through the thick fur of his tail, and into the impossibly sensitive tissue beneath, then pushing up his tail, forcing all the hairs against their grain, his thumbnail scraping off flesh and fur.

Tears of unspeakable horror passed from the boy's eyes, though he could not feel them. The agony of the feeling was more than anything that he had ever felt, or would ever be able to describe. It was like dying a thousand deaths, being burned alive, oh it was all over, it hurts, it wouldn't stop, oh, please, let me die, let my heart stop, it hurts, let me die, I have to die, I have to die, please stop! stop it, stop itstopitstopit!!

And yet all he could do was hang there, helpless, as Henning hugged him tight with one arm, the other preoccupied with the boy's tail. He'd never felt anything quite like the pain he was feeling through Son Gohan right then. It was terrible and wonderful and it was everything. With his thumb buried into the source, he felt it until it nearly consumed him, robbing him of sight and smell and taste but for the love and hatred and need of that feeling.

He recalled his dream, and, in remembrance, his left hand, clenched tightly against the boy's ribs, went to the spot just beneath his right breast. Here. Here is where I shall brand him. Here will he be marked mine and--

But then Henning's thoughts were all cut short, as he felt a pain that was not Son Gohan's.

He felt pain that was his own.

His entire seven-foot body convulsed backwards, his hands unclenching on their own, releasing the boy, now forgotten to him, from his grip as his entire form fell to the floor, and his pale white lips opened up and screamed and screamed, because his form was burning and he was suddenly aware of an electrical sound, a popping, static sound, and beneath it he heard a deep, resonating hmmmmm.

When it stopped, he looked upward, to see that his brother, Joru Le'Armont, was standing over him, his normally pleasant, pale face moist with sweat and twisted in horror at something.

In his hands he held the Chah't scepter. It was glowing vibrantly.

Henning mind was white with utter and complete shock from what he was sure had to be, and he said, sounding almost like a confused child whose sibling had accidentally hurt him, "Brother... you.. betrayed me?"

To be continued...


	36. CM36

FFN is still refusing to acknowledge my specified italicized areas. Read this part un-ffn-funkified at chelsee0.tripod.com/CM36.htm (just cut n' paste it the URL)

* * *

Contradicting Mission

Part 36

Joru couldn't breath. His heart was stopped. His throat choked. His golden eyes bulging like a terrified beast, lined with swollen veins. He'd hurt Henning. His own brother. The only person who'd stood up for him when he'd been picked on by his fellow Tahch-jin class mates; the one who'd protected him and remained by his side and tolerated him when no one else could and understood him when no one else did.

He'd hurt Henning.

And he could almost swear that he hadn't meant to. 

When he'd turned that corner, and seen his brother's back standing in that empty hall, he'd felt a flush of joy and gratitude and overwhelming relief: Henning had come to save him! Everything would be okay, because Henning always found a way to save them when the chips were down!

It wasn't until he approached, his mouth just parting to voice a greeting, that he heard a small squeak of pain, and saw that his dear brother was not alone after all. All muscles in Joru jerked to a stop. Held tightly against Henning's chest, motionless, Joru could just make out the shape of Son Gohan. 

What happened next was very much a blur to him. He heard the hum of the torturous weapon in his hands, and he remembered the feeling of wind gusting against his forehead as he raced forward, but what he actually did, what he was intending to do, was so completely unthinkable to him that he failed to understand his own intentions until he discovered himself standing above his brother, looking down in complete shock and sickness, as he felt his brother's pain racing through the length of the Chah't scepter and into his hand and from there into every crevice and cranny of his tender body.

It seemed Henning's next words were only explaining to Joru what he had done, for he still was not quite sure, "Brother... you.. betrayed me?"

The scepter slipping from his fingers to snap and crackle as it hit the ground, Joru put one hand against his churning stomach, the other hand over his mouth in case he might throw up, unsure if his horror and disgust was toward his brother over what he had been doing, or towards himself over what he'd just done. His head was shaking back and forth slowly, no, no, in silent denial.

*

Gohan was not even aware of Joru. He hadn't actually heard Henning speak either, or at least he did and chose not to comprehend. He was in this other place, where everything was movement and horizontal streaks of color and burning and searing hot hatred that was fueled with the kindling of humiliation and utter indignation,. He was not aware of much, really, though it was nothing like the numbness of when Henning had his tail. No, that had been an cold, blank emptiness.

What he felt now was the opposite. 

His entire body, entire being, was abuzz with so many signals and feelings and sights and sounds and tastes, yes, smells and feelings, emotional and physical and all of them were beating into his senses, fighting one another to reach his brain first, battering his mind until he simply could not comprehend everything that passed through him. It was as though, to make up for those eternal seconds in which he'd been lost in the monstrous Tahch-jin's grip, his entire system was loading him with sensation after sensation, giving him a full report of his entire body, right down to his cramping fingers. The only sensation he could really distinguish was the raw, nervy feeling still pumping up his tail from the bruising treatment it had received. 

And his anger. 

Raging on the top of his mind, as heat would rise in a burning house, was the smothering feeling of, yes, indignation. And the rampant, blazing sensation that told him he was not in his right mind and he'd better like it, bitch, because there was nothing he could do about it and he'd better not, oh lordly, better not try to gain control right then or WHAM, the Gohan that he knew and was would be burned alive and his entire small body would explode because he was not going to roll over and take it this time, oh, kami no. 

And, feeding on the berzerker blaze above, his intellect was mutating into the icy glacier of reptilian blood lust. Twisting his beloved logic into unwholesome thoughts, Kill him, tear him in half, oh, rip him open, pull out his insides, smash his head, you don't have to take this, oh, no, Gohan m' boy, you don't have to take this from the likes of him! It was the cold, unfriendly voice, and for the first time he liked what it was saying, because it made perfect sense that he should spill the blood of his tormentor.

The lust for destruction (You're a machine, Gohan m' boy, a machine of destruction! Do your job! Destroy!) was so loud that Gohan failed to hear the woefully quiet human half of himself whispering pitifully, Please, wait a moment! You're out of control! Can't you see that? Just wait one moment! Think! There's a good boy, wait a moment and think! The situation painfully reminded him of something, but he could not remember what, even when that quiet human voice started screaming as the memory enveloped it, Tousan's going to die! All over again, can't you feel it?! Just like this, just like this, just like this!...

All that registered, however, was a state of impending horror, badness, pain, death, and he had to move right now, because that was just what he had to do, move and act and get going and move, move, move, strike! Kill! HATE!! 

He was on his feet instantly, his hair all but standing up at its roots as his entire being was trying and failing to send him into the golden transformation that was all but required in order to control the furnace that was he, but though his chi flickered off and on from the color of the blue moon to the color of the sun at its zenith, nothing happened, and it only frustrated him, grated at his senses, and he, feeling as though he were moving in slow motion, looked over his shoulder.

And looked down at Henning, who was only now beginning to get to his feet.

He, right then, defined his source of rage. The enemy. His enemy. No. Not enemy.

His prey.

It was uncanny luck that, the instant Gohan lifted his foot to crush Henning's vile head, hat and all, beneath his boot, that the Tahch-jin chose to roll over and try to get to his feet. The impact of the boys foot crushed the tiles to powder, but he didn't care, because he was going to kill Henning, and kill him now, while he was still alone and unprotected, with no Aeesu-jins to hide behind.

Henning was in a lost world of his own. A state of shock, really; unable to think of anything other than that his brother, his brother, Joru Le'Armont, who shared his name and his space ship, who had, all this time, been his only truly loyal companion, had betrayed him. Betrayed him for... what? For Son Gohan? For some Saiya-jin brat like... Then the mighty Tahch-jin understood, the same moment he rolled to get up, unwittingly saving his skull from being pulverized.

All this time, the hunting, the planning, he'd assumed that only he knew the depths of Son Gohan's soul. But he was wrong, oh, he saw now that he was wrong. Henning was a Tahch-jin, he could read all that he needed through his hands, through his touch, into his being; this gift was what aided him in discovering that this specific, beautiful little Saiya-jin boy was the one, the one he'd been looking for. But he'd forgotten that dear Joru was also a Tahch-jin.

He'd also, at some point through this, come into physical contact with Son Gohan. And it seemed that everyone that came really into contact with this stupid, cursed boy were always affected, afflicted, one way or another. Whether it be hatred or affection or what ever word could be used to describe Henning's particular interest, they always felt something, it was in the boy's presence, which Henning had felt, but it was in his chi and in his soul and in his sheer existence and being.

Henning jerked to his feet, startled by the utter force behind the impact of the boy's attack as it struck the ground, and instantly his tall, sleek body was lower to the ground, one hand raised, palm facing outward, beside his ear, to attack, his other hand extended from his body on a long arm, palm facing the ground, ready to defend. It was the first time he'd needed to get into an actual fighting formation in longer than he could count, but even then, studying the absolutely flawless stance of Son Gohan (though it appeared that the boy was only standing, his arms hanging straight at either of his narrow sides) Henning knew that unless something else happened, he would lose this fight.

And soundly.

When Gohan moved in a second time, his tail audibly snapping behind him in uncontrolled malice, it didn't matter that his attack was sloppy in his rage. It was too fast to be anything but effective.

It wasn't that Henning didn't see the boy moving, but rather, it's like watching an arrow loosed from a bow, too fast to counter, just slow enough to vaguely follow with the eyes. With every strain of might in him, the Tahch-jin swung his head back, only guessing that the boy, in all his hatred, would be impulsed to smash his face first.

And almost instantly he felt a puff of air brush past the tip of his nose and he found himself staring into the face of Son Gohan, now just inches from his own personal face. He'd avoided the initial punch -- if only by a millimeter or two--, but, just as abruptly as the boy's attack had been, the force of the air, through which the boy's fist had cut, following in the wake of the attack and plowed into him with just as much force as anything Gohan could have thrown at him.

Henning was not aware he'd been sailing through the air, or even struck by anything, until his body was deeply imbedded into the wall that had been behind him. A shower of despris erupted around him and hit the ground with a suprisingly lovely tinkling noise.

Joru cried out in surprise, seeing neither of the two move until, suddenly, the halls shook and echoed from the impact of his brother's body; and only then did he see that, now, his dear sibling was planted in the wall, his arms stretched out from his tall body, his eyes wide, looking at Son Gohan, who as now standing where Henning had been, his small boyish fist still extended. His tail was elevated into a dramatic arch behind his back, causing him to look utterly dominant in his power.

"Oh, kami," Joru's shrill voice cut through the air, crackling with the electricity of the fighting going on in the Underground, "Oh, kami! Son Gohan! Don't kill him! Don't kill my brother!"

If Son Gohan did indeed hear him, he gave no sign that it was so, for he only began to pace forward, towards the still stunned Henning and, using one hand, grabbed hold of his Tahch-jin tormentor's shirt front, jerked him from the wall, and threw him to the ground, face first. When Henning tried to get up, whether it would be to run or to fight back is left unknown, the boy serviced to kick him in the hip.

What are you doing? Kill him! No, enjoy this, you have time. No, no, no, never prolong it! Kill him quickly and have it over with! But you don't want it over with, to you, Gohan m'boy? Just like this! Tousan's dying! Just like this, just like this! Such was only a small clip of the mental dialogue running through Gohan's head, and, in the overwhelming feelings, the smeared lines of sight, of his consciousness of good and bad, he could no longer distinguish the difference between the unfriendly voice and the simpering of his human side. It was a massive clutter of people telling him what to do, and he hated it, because he was sick of people telling him what to do, sick to death of it, and he wasn't going to take it. 

And all his rage and hatred and disgust towards himself and Henning and, yes, though he saw it not, his fear and all else was directed at the tall, slim, toned body of Henning Le'Armont, who he was going to kill, he just hadn't yet decided how long he would take to do it.

Were he to know that his power was driving him half mad, it would have made no difference. His little worn knuckles crashed down on Henning's back, and his keen Saiya-jin hearing heard the air being driven out of the Tahch-jin's body. His body was trying to transform, even then, though he didn't know it, into Super Saiya-jin. His anger was giving him too much power, it was too much, and his little half-human body could not hold it all in. He felt like he was going to explode, blow up, splattering the room with little Gohan-bits, and the sensation was reeling him yet higher into a state of panic, which was converting into desperation and then into hate, because hatred loaned him power.

And the Saiya-jin in him wanted power. 

It didn't care that his human side couldn't take it.

He reached down and rolled Henning over before drawing back a balled fist and...

Two sweat-damp hands grabbed him by his shoulders and pulled him backwards, off his balance, as he suddenly did hear Joru's crying voice, "Oh, please, don't kill my brother!"

Henning's eyes flew open at the interruption and, mercy of all mercies, saw this as his only opportunity to act, and so, throwing his body away from the raging boy, dove across the floor, gripping hold of the Chah't scepter. Gohan tore lose from Joru's grasp and leapt after him, hands extended to strangle him just as Henning whipped over onto his back, scepter extended, pointed toward the boy, elbows locked.

Gohan couldn't stop in time, though after he'd sprung he saw exactly what the Tahch-jin was trying to do. Nevertheless he flared his chi and tried to cease his trajectory, far too late, for that instant he crashed bodily into the glowing, humming orb at the end of the scepter, burying it in the unprotected organs of his stomach and, his momentum still pushing him forward, nearly impaled himself on it.

He lost control of his body as he became aware only of the color white, filling his sight, his senses, the white humming coming from the glowing globe, and the white pain sent through his brain. He only managed a startled yelp before his vocals clenched and he couldn't make a sound. He sailed harmlessly over the Tahch-jin, and rolled across the floor.

Henning was on his feet in an instant, and for him, a single second felt like eternity as so many thoughts filled his head. He felt an impulse to dive in on Gohan before he could recover, grab his tail a second time and this time hang on, but that thought was cut short as he realized every time he though he really had the boy he ended up getting injured, instead. 

He knew he had to move fast, whatever he did, because the little Saiya-jin would surely get up soon, so he turned to retreat, head for the main control room, set the computer to destroy the whole fucking planet, but the realized he'd have to pack all his things first, so he turned to call to Joru to tell him to run and be prepared to leave the planet immediately because he was finally going to get his wish and Aeesu-sei would be reduced to rubble, but as his head turned to his brother it stopped. He couldn't travel through space with Joru! He'd betrayed him!

Confused and scared and feeling remarkably as he had as a youngster when he'd done something wrong and could hear his parents coming down the hall to lecture him for it, Henning wanted to tear at his hair and roll on the ground because that was how he solved all his problems before...

But if he lingered, things would not be made better.

He'd be killed.

By a child.

His mind turned empty of schemes, and so, in a state of blind confusion and fear, he turned and fled, trying to escape the demons of doubt as much as the tangible dangers of this mysterious universe.

He took the Chah't scepter with him.

Gohan was only half conscious from the pain that still blinded him, little sparks of electricity flying off his shaking body.

Joru Le'Armont sank to his knees on the dirty floor and made not a sound.

* * *

Bojack could not understand why Heng was not wearing down. The Aeesu-jin's attacks proved feeble when compared to the Biraju-jin's, he was slower, fatter, and received far more hits than he presented.

So it was confusing that Bojack was losing his breath before Heng was.

He ducked under the attacking gray tail of his enemy as it lashed for his face, and diving forward, his mane a streak of magma behind him, and drove his fist upward into the meat of Heng's stomach. Though he struck deep, the Aeesu-jin didn't seem to notice it as he raised a three-toed foot and drove his heel into Bojack's torso, just above the jagged scar that ran horizontal over his chest. 

Even as the impact hit him, the Biraju-jin arced his fist up and sought to drive his knuckles under Heng's knee cap, perhaps to cripple him, and indeed his attack hit its mark, but it failed to pierce all the bulky padding of skin that had built up over the whole of that great body.

They broke apart from eachother and stood at a distance, eye meeting eye, as Bojack began to realize something.

Aeesu-jin didn't eat. They only consumed liquids. So how, now, was Heng so utterly fat, if he did not eat? It came to him, then, that perhaps it wasn't just fat, but extra skin, built up over years and years; one layer after another of the tough, thick Aeesu-jin skin... That would explain why even the devastating thrusts of Bojack were not striking too far through it.

The sounds of screaming and battling and fighting and erupting chi echoed, dimmly, as though muffled, through the corridors, temporarily drawing the two battalion's attention away from their throw-down, looking up the hall, seeking a source. The spectator's of Bojack and Heng's fight -- Garlic, Freeza and the minions of Heng -- redirected their attention as well.

For a split second there was silence, in which only the heavy breathing of Bojack and Heng could be heard, as they listened to the approaching sounds of war.

Abruptly, a section of tiles lining the wall exploded outward, and an uncounted number of Aeesu-jin, mingled with a few other aliens, suddenly washed into the hall, all fighting violently amongst themselves, the very air sizzling and glowing and spitting with chi and the mortal cries of those dying and the victorious shouts of those prevailing and the snaps and cracks of lashing tails as they struck repeatedly at one another, crack! snap!, and, though they knew it not, they witnessed the mighty battle between Henning's loyal army and Heng's mighty warriors, distinguished from one another only by the sashes Heng's men wore across their chests and the blue and black hats Henning's men wore.

A sudden thought came to Bojack, right then. More, a reminder.

He looked over at Freeza and Garlic. Then he looked to the stock-still minions of Heng that had been quietly watching the fight. Then he looked down the hall at the battling Aeesu-jins, then up the hall that stood empty as it rounded the corner out of sight.

There was no sign of Son Gohan.

He swore at the same time Heng plowed passed him to defend his own men from the mutinous Aeesu-jin that had joined forces with the enemy Tahch-jin. The fight between Biraju-jin and Aeesu-jin had been, officially, put on hold for more defensive priorities.

Bojack tore his way to Garlic and Freeza, through the twisting, murderous, fighting throng as it over-swept him, shouting to be heard over the raging battle, "Where's the kid?!"

It was obvious by the blank, confused, bewildered expressions on the demon and the Off-planet's face that they knew not, glancing hither and thither through the swelling mass of brawling bodies, trying to glimpse through the tangle a patch of a gray-blue fighting suit, or the flash of a furry brown tail, or a snatch of his clear, high, boyish voice above the din of deeper, adult voices.

But, though they could not be sure, the boy appeared to be gone, having been lost some time during the match between Bojack and Heng; Garlic could not sense his chi.

Though he was quite near them, a great multitude of combative Aeesu-jin stormed between Bojack and his fellow allies; they lost sight of eachother in the madness of motion and battle. They were on their own.

* * *

When Gohan became fully aware of himself again, through the twitching skin and crackle of sparks that leapt from his hair, he made no immediate move to get to his feet. For, though it took a good two or three minutes for him to regain his body, his mind had returned almost instantly. His rational mind.

Stupid, moron, baka, dummy! What were you thinking! 

Unable to move, his unfriendly inner voice quiet for the moment, he was forced to lay there and just hear it, his eyes closed.

Don't you ever go into battle again without using your brain! You're lucky to still be alive!

He was still quite angry, yes, but he had it under control again; a raging river, but subdued under a thick layer of ice. As he gathered his elbows beneath him, aiding him to get up, he decided that his human side did, indeed, have a valid point. He could not win this battle with brute strength alone, not as he was. That was why he was here in the Underground in the first place, was it not. He needed to...

He glanced up at the sound of movement, a spark of terror racing through him at the thought that he might have been wrong, and Henning might not have fled as he'd thought.

But he only found Joru, seated against the wall, watching him. It was the first time Gohan became actually aware of the meeker Tahch-jin's presence. And it was the first time Gohan began to, perhaps, understand fully what had happened.

"You... ," he said, thought hard for a moment, went on, "You saved me again?" But he was unsure if he was right; so he ended it in a question.

Joru nodded, looking infinitely weary, "Yes, yes, " he said, his head nodding up and down slowly, sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the wall behind him, arms crossed over his chest, eyes cast downward, "But this time I didn't get away with it. Henning... my beloved brother... he knows, now." There might have been a tear in his eye, or it could have been a trick of the flickering halogen lights, "We're no longer allies, I think. I'll no longer be permitted to stand at his side."

A confused, then crushing, demolishing feeling swept through Gohan as he discovered he'd destroyed yet another person's life merely be existing; and yet, he could not be selfless enough to say he wished Joru hadn't helped him, during any of the times he did. His small fingers encircled his tail protectively, smoothing down the hairs Henning had so brutally disrupted, trying to feel the comforting warmth the gentle touch transmitted through his starved body, as he tried to grasp a calmer plateau of mind, feeling, maybe, ready to regain a more controlled mentality than what he'd been sailing along with so far.

"*krrsh* Son Gohan!" He heard, suddenly, the tiny, electronic voice of Sunow in his ear, "Son Gohan I can't do anything else here! There's just too many codes I don't know!"

Gohan released his tail with one hand and put a finger to the device, pushing it closer to his mouth, about to answer, when his eyes again went to Joru, who was watching him closely, "Sunow-san? One moment." He put his hand over the mini-microphone so Sunow could not hear him and said to Joru, "You know the codes to the computer system your brother stole from Heng?"

Baffled, the Tahch-jin nodded, "Actually, I have my own, personal codes to it."

A heart beat. A pang of guilt at needing yet more help. "Would you be willing to share them?"

A pause, a tremble, then a visible crumbling, as though under a colossal weight, "I... imagine I could."

"Sunow-san?" Gohan removed his hand and spoke again to the Aeesu-jin on the other end of his connection, "I'm coming right now. I'm bringing help."

He gathered himself back to his shaky feet, spat a small wad of bloody spit to the floor, gathered his tail around his waist like a good little Saiya-jin, and looked to the Tahch-jin, measuring, before saying, quietly, "Joru-san? Will you come with me, now, and help me?"

Joru glanced up at his name, and a strange feeling seeped into his weak heart. 

'Joru-san.' The boy had called him 'Joru-san.'

Strange, he'd been called Joru-sama, and Lord Joru and Master Le'Armont or sometimes simply Master... But being called only 'Joru-san' by this single Saiya-jin boy, with a whip-thin body and a furry brown tail and a scar on his cheek and a quiet twinkling in his dark eyes and a soft, humble voice, made him feel genuinely appreciated and respected in a way being called 'Lord' and 'Master' could and did not. In simpler words, he liked the ring of it. 

He stood up, feeling stronger and braver than he ever had before, visions of his brother's smile fading, chuckling on the inside -- Joru-san -- and answered, "Yes, Son Gohan. Yes, I do think I will."

To be continued...


	37. CM37

Contradicting Mission 

Part 37

They couldn't have traveled more than half a mile through the Tahch-jin fortress before Joru Le'Armont slowed his pace, then finally stopped, leaning against the wall, a hand over his stomach, his eyes wrinkled at the corners.

Pausing, looking over his shoulder, Son Gohan looked back at him, his concern showing only through a single finger, sliding anxiously over the furry tail curled tightly around his waist, smoothing down the fur, "Joru-san?" He kept his face void of emotion, knowing that somewhere close to the surface of his mind was his berzerker mode, embodiment of the unfriendly voice. He didn't trust himself to display any emotion at all, for fear it become a stepping stone to his uncontrollable Saiya-jin side. He wouldn't even allow his tail to twitch, even though it meant keeping it so tightly wound that it was difficult to breath.

The Tahch-jin made a sound in his throat, as though he were about to say something, before he cut it off abruptly as his tall body stooped over, eyes wide, and he vomited, one elbow against the tiled wall for support. Gohan turned away, studying the tiles beneath his feet and trying not to hear the gagging or splattering sounds behind him. Far away, perhaps it was just echoing through the chi he felt, he heard the sounds of battle. He wanted to fight, too.

He closed his eyes and tried to recite to himself mentally the first two hundred pages of his trigonometry book his mother had given him two months ago, which he'd converted to memory the first week of owning it. Though every exact word and every detail of every picture in the book, the color of the pages, the font the text was written in, everything came to mind clearly and quickly, it did little to help him calm down. It just made him want to have the book in his hands so he could tear it into little pieces.

He was still the machine of destruction.

When Joru stood up again, he said quietly, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth, "I have a weak stomach." He moved away from the mess he had made and stood abreast the boy, giving the signal that they could continue, "Stress makes me sort of ill."

Gohan said nothing. Concentrating whatever rationality he had toward keeping track of Sunow's chi, all the while keeping an extra 'eye' out behind them in case an attack should come (was he really hoping an attack would come?); whatever mentality he had left was going into keeping himself from asking Le'Armont if he wouldn't mind stopping for a few rounds of rapid battle.

"Where are we going?" Joru asked, and, though he knew he was, by far, the Saiya-jin's senior, he felt as though he were asking one of his elders a stupid question. It was just the other-wordliness of this particular boy.

"We're going to find a friend of mine," Gohan answered after a moment of silence, "He should be at you Tahch-jins' main control room."

For a while, there was only the sound of their feet echoing down the hall as Joru allowed this to sink in, realizing that indeed they were heading in that direction... But surely Son Gohan had not been in the fortress enough times to know where the control room was... Or did he? Frightened by the silence and feeling as though he were being squeezed or that maybe he would have to throw up again Joru inquired, "You know where the control room is?"

"No."

"Then how do you know where-"

The boy's eyelids seem to be growing heavy, for his eyes were nearly closed as he said, "My friend is there."

The answer perplexed Joru for only half a second before he recalled his own hypothosis. Son Gohan can feel chi. Joru put a thumb and forefinger to his chin in thought, his forehead wrinkling, So he must be able to conceal his chi as well. This is an amazing discovery, indeed...

The Saiya-jin boy must have mistaken the perplexed look on Joru's face for offence, for, into the silence, he said, "I'm sorry." His head was cast down, hiding most of the bruises on his face, "I've been difficult for everyone lately. I'm just... I'm just a little high-strung right now. Please have patience with me, I can't seem to do or say anything right anymore." He looked away, then, for even with his head cast down he saw that, by the way the Tahch-jin placed his feet, Le'Armong at least had some fighting experiance...

Through the air, Joru was picking up the confusing panorama of emotions radiating off of the boy. There was lots of anger and frustration, the Tahch-jin recognized, and confusion, lots of that, too. Hesitation, determination, and, mixed in, the crushing feeling to just give it all up. Odd how there was very little fear.

He noticed that the boy had quickened his pace a little bit, walking slightly ahead of Joru than beside him. Le'Armont, so much taller than the child, felt a heavy feeling in his heart as he saw, looking down, that each step Son Gohan took seemed strained; his head hanging low, as though he were sustaining a great weight upon him.

"Son Gohan? What are you doing here?" Joru asked at length, "What are you doing on this planet? Everything about you just doesn't belong here."

As if to run from the question, the boy walked even faster, causing the Tahch-jin to broaden his strides to keep up. When he did answer, it was in a voice even quieter than usual, "I have to make sure this planet does not get destroyed. If I don't, my own planet will be destroyed as well."

Joru's face twisted, "But surely you know that the Aeesu-jin aren't really helping the Saiya-jin. You're too clever to think that this planet has any intention of doing anything for the Saiya-jin besides enslaving them. Son Gohan, the Aeesu-jin people are killing your people, not aiding them."

"I know. I wasn't meaning it like that. The Saiya-jin people... will be destroyed by the Aeesu-jin some day." Every word became lighter, until he ended it in a whisper, and after he was done speaking the boy gave a small shiver.

Joru watched Gohan from behind for a while, having caught the way the boy spoke of the Saiya-jin race as if at a distance, saying "the Saiya-jin people" rather than "my people", the words coming out naturally, insinuating that he did not consciously think of himself as a Saiya-jin. It was curious. "Who are your people? What planet do you come from?" He asked.

He waited quite a while before he realized the boy was not going to answer.

Hesitantly, afraid of what he might sense through his fingers, but becoming aware of a strangely parental feeling toward the peculiar, mysterious child, the Tahch-jin, his long fingers shaking, placed a comforting hand upon Son's shoulder. Joru hadn't known what he thought would happen, whether the boy would relax a little or maybe flinch slightly or tell him tartly not to touch him, ever again...

He hadn't expected Son to jump as though he'd been electrified and just as instantly throw himself away from the contact, his back flat against the wall, hands splayed against the wall at his sides, eyes wide, as though he expected Joru to attack him, the hairs on the tail around his waist stood on end.

Startled by the sudden movement himself, Joru jumped as well, his hands raised, palms facing out to show that he was unarmed, crying out, nervously pacing from one foot to another, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I was just, well you looked so miserable; I felt bad and..."

Though Gohan noted closely his every move, guardedly watching as Joru put weight on one foot than another, he managed to wave a hand in a mock-dismissive way, "No, no, I'm sorry." He shook his head as though trying to clear something from it, "I'm... having difficulty controlling myself right now. Too much fighting, can't get myself to relax." He pushed away from the wall and made his eyes face forward, down the hall, toward Sunow's chi, away from Le'Armont, "It's alright, now, though, I think. Come on."

They didn't get much farther, however, before Gohan stopped yet again, this time to look over his shoulder, eyes squinted, mouth partially open, and look down the empty hall, which rounded a corner and vanished out of sight. Inside, his body felt a hot flush of both fear and anticipation as he said, "They're coming."

Joru, startled, asked, "Who are you talking about?" He hoped the boy was referring to allies.

Saiya-jin blood boiling, his breath coming out loudly through his teeth, Gohan's whisper was more of a hiss as he said, "Everyone." His thin lips were skewing into a small, nervous smile, unsure if he should be happy or not. His body said he should, but his intellect was telling him to run, run, run, while his Saiya-jin instincts were answering with a 'hell, no!'

A sweat of fear broke out alone the edge of Joru's hair, down to the base of his neck, beading on the fur at his temples. He squinted down the hall, trying to see a trace of movement, but it was not a matter of mere sight.

"Joru-san," Gohan's voice was utterly different now, a sharp, commanding bark, as he decided to roll over and let his Saiya-jin side take over his inner council for a while, "Keep going on ahead. Go to the main computer and help my friend there. He's an Aeesu-jin, this tall," he held up a hand, though his eyes never left the hall behind him, "His name is Sunow. He'll tell you what he needs."

"But-" Joru felt himself wanting to cave under the suddenly powerful voice of the boy, hesitating only because he was afraid of being alone.

"Go." Then the quiet voice returned as he said, "Please. I'm going to hold them off, but I need Sunow-san to finish as soon as possible or else we're all dead."

Joru Le'Armont, brother of Henning Le'Armont, Tahch-jin, stood tall, squared his shoulders, nodded his head and, keeping the fear out of his voice, said, "Okay. Count on me."

And as he turned and ran down the hall, leaving Son Gohan behind him, he felt a queer sense of pride; the Saiya-jin boy was depending on him, trusting him. Unlike with Henning, he did not feel as though he were nothing but a piece of baggage. He was necessary, required for success, needed. He felt important. A part of Son Gohan's team.

He kept himself at a steady sprint, his long legs pumping, his arms swinging back and forth at his sides, his head lowered to avoid wind resistance. After five minutes of such running and he'd reached the main control room, mildly surprised to find the door torn open, but not letting himself hesitate now that he had arrived. Boldly, he marched inside, jaw set, chest out.

Hunkered over the computer was a very small Aeesu-jin, green in skin, and really quite young by Aeesu-jin standards.

His voice lacking a bit of his conviction, Joru asked, "Are you Sunow?"

The Aeesu-jin must have been deeply imersed in his task, for he jumped at the sound of the Tahch-jin's voice, spinning his body around, stubby tail coiling up behind him like a scorpion, ready to strike at the slightest move, "Who are you?"

Joru made sure to keep his posture entirly loose, not expressing an inch of either offence or defense, his arms limp at his sides, though he felt quite intimidated, and he said, "My name is Joru Le'Armont. I'm a Tahch-jin... traitor to my brother Henning. Son Gohan... the Saiya-jin boy... sent me to help you. You need codes, right? This is my computer, I can show you how to do whatever you need."

The Aeesu-jin seemed wary, but Joru could feel through the air his desperation, "Alright, then, Joru-san. Yes, I need help."

"You won't regret this, Sunow-san," Jorus aid, relaxing, feeling as though he had just passed the initiation test. He was really part of Son Gohan's team now. And he was scared as hell. But also proud.

The Aeesu-jin and the Tahch-jin leaned over the computer, talking in quick, low whispers.

* * *

They're coming, Gohan m'boy.

"Yeah...," he said out loud in agreement. Le'Armont was gone. He was alone.

That's how he wanted it right now.

He turned his body slightly, so that his left shoulder faced down the hall, toward the mass of enemies surging toward him, his right shoulder facing the other way, in the direction Joru had gone. His feet were braced against the ground, his body low. He began to gather his chi, as he extended both hands forward, toward the threat he knew would soon round the corner, touching at the wrists, the fingers of his right hand facing the ceiling.

"Ka...," his chi continued to steadily rise, like the tide of the raging ocean. He gathered his hands to his right hip, cupping them together as all his chi channeled between them. He felt it's warmth against his palms. Controlled but raw. His power. The lighting in the room darkened as the halogen lights above him exploded, now lit only by the blue energy enveloping him.

"... Me...," he narrowed his eyes, splitting his concentration between building his chi and feeling the rolling, battling Aeesu-jin powers coming toward him. Coming toward their death. He saw clearly in his minds eye the face of his father, not gentle, but fierce, defiant, fearless. Excited. Full of life and danger. The face of his father in the heat of battle. And this time, his father was not calling him a coward. Unbeknownst to Gohan, he was grinning in a way very different from his usual shy smile. His body lowered even more, his toes separating in his boots to better hug the ground.

Well, let them come.

* * *

Garlic and Freeza, outclassed, unable to find Bojack, and, even if they were able to find him, expecting no protection from him, did their best to get out of the abrupt war that had suddenly overtaken them. Running down the hall, unknowingly in the direction Son Gohan had gone, Garlic was only aware they were inevitably heading toward Sunow's chi, not much farther ahead. They didn't have to look back to know that the battle was following along behind them, stray chi blasts exploding at their heels; Garlic's cowl was torn to ribbons. The searing hot chi was nearly melting his mind within his skull, so high it was, so many incredibly large chi's.

He had never felt true panic before.

He did not like it.

There were no halls perpendicular to the one they were in, no where to go but forward. The gremlin was having a hard time keeping up with his Aeesu-jin companion. What little chi he had, he was pouring into his short legs, wishing off and on that he could transform into his large, powerful body, with the higher chi and, more importantly, the longer legs, so escape could be easier.

For a moment he half-stumbled and the first line of fighting Aeesu-jin closed in around him, until one of their powerful, thick tails slammed into him -- it would have been a fatal wound, were he not immortal, he noted with pains -- and was sent hurdling forward with such momentum that he caught up with Freeza again, a bit too stunned to catch his footing, hit the ground, rolled a few hundred feet, then pulled his legs under him to continue running again.

"That hurt?" Freeza asked, not really concerned but, in his state of fleeing panic, must have felt mildly hysterical. He found it amusing.

"Yes." Garlic said tartly, putting even more power into his retreat, "It did."

It was then that Garlic felt, not far up ahead, the rising chi of Son Gohan. Rolling and building, it was also centering into a single point, concentrating into a lethal dose that meant only one thing. He didn't have time to think more than 'At least the kid's still alive...' before he recognized the pattern in the boy's focusing power.

The kid was preparing to release one hell of a blast.

"We should get out of this hall," Garlic yelled to his Aeesu-jin companion, who was getting ahead of him again.

Freeza looked back at him and shouted back, "You think so?!" And as he looked back he saw that, behind Garlic, the battle was getting closer to them again. It was just meters from Garlic's sprinting back.

"No, I mean now!" The gremlin returned, "Or we're all going to burn!"

The raw terror in his voice gave Freeza one option.

He threw his body as hard as he could to the left, against the wall, with enough force to hurdle himself through the tiles and into a small, unlit room.

Garlic followed closely behind him through the hole in the wall, in so desperate a hurry that he landed on his shoulder and rolled, coming to a stop on his hands and knees, breathing hard as he realized just how exhausted he was from the exertion of running fast enough to keep up with Freeza.

Looking over his shoulder, Garlic saw that the battling Aeesu-jin failed to see either him or Freeza in the darkness of the room they had broken into, too busy were they with their own opponents to look for new ones.

Freeza got to his feet, brushing dust off his arms, whipping his tail to rid it of remaining bits of tile. His delicate mouth was open in unhidden surprise as he realized they might just have escaped, after all.

He dared to give a large sigh.

Garlic rose, too concerned with the power the gaki was gathering a few leagues up the hall to feel relief.

* * *

All of Gohan's senses were tuned to the approaching battle, now perhaps just meters away, around the corner, out of sight for now, but approaching.

"... Ha...," piercing electric blue light was growing between his slightly curled hands.

Reflecting off the tiles at the corner of the hall, Gohan could make out the flashes of explosions; his Saiya-jin ears picked up the cries of battle, mortal screams of the dying, triumphant crows of the victorious; he smelled intense anger and fear and the oppressive scent of blood and carnage; he tasted electricity in the air. Most of all, he felt the raging chi, the kind that only flares up when the situation is of life or death.

It was an amazing battle that was coming towards him, and his Saiya-jin instincts were pleased by the prospect. He did not move, however; he was too busy completing his concentration of chi, gathered between his palms, cupped at his right hip in the old technique his father had taught him, warm against his fingers, it's florescent sapphire too bright to look directly at. In his excitement, his let the tightness of his tail loosen, it slipped down his hips, brushed his thighs before cracking to life, arching behind him to better stabilize his stance.

"...Me...,"

He was waiting. Waiting to see the whites of their eyes. Eager, but his human side kept him restrained from attacking now, halfcocked.

Then, they came.

Rolling around the corner like a roaring tide of the sea, they were so thickly packed together, fighting, killing, dying, their midst alight with exploding, burning, lethal chi, that it was impossible to see more than a few yards deep into them; impossible to see any of their faces, the air was thick with smoke and ash and the horrible smell of blood.

They were moving faster than Gohan had anticipated, now that they were in sight. Flooding toward him, the force of their chi plastering his hair to his forehead, his tail extended straight behind him.

Now!

"HAAA!!" He threw his hands forward, and from him flowed forth power, raw, overwhelming power, melting the walls to glass as it burned past them, plunging into the middle of the battling Aeesu-jin and instantly obliterating them, reducing their bodies to char on contact, burning deeper and deeper into their midst, the battalions unaware they had been hit before they were already dead.

Gohan cocked his hands slightly, steering the blast to continue down through the army of fighters rather than detonate against the far wall, and as the blast blazed around the corner, out of sight, the boy's ears picked up the screams as his own personal chi continued killing and burning a destructive path.

His face settled back into one of neutrality as he stood, dropping out of his braced position, his hands tapping pensively at his hips, his tail swinging one way, then the other.

A huge explosion rocked the Underground as his Kamehameha finally exploded somewhere farther down the all, a blast of hot air ripping past Gohan, followed by a second shock wave, then a third, the final one being the most powerful, carrying large chunks of debris and shards of broken tile.

Though he wasn't particularly strained, Gohan discovered he was breathing heavily. Too heavily. Hyperventilating. His face remained blank, though his mouth was open, gulping in deep breaths of air, which he exhaled heavily. His shoulders and chest rose and fell. His mind was a little empty, every thought cut short before it could be finished. He wasn't allowing himself to think. Wasn't allowing himself to think. Couldn't allow himself to think.

How many was that?! How many Aeesu-jin had I just...

His Saiya-jin side had stepped back, now that it'd had its way, leaving his human side to deal with the aftermath.

Breathing in and out, he heard the rapid pace of his heart, a loud 'b-bum, b-bum, b-bum' against his rib cage.

He was suddenly overcome by a strong wave of vertigo, as spots crept over his vision, his stomach churned, and he lurched over. His body was trying to vomit. He had nothing in his stomach to throw up, however, and his heaves were dry, rasping, so very painful, every muscle in his pathetically thin form straining, squeezing inside of him. His arms wrapped around his caved stomach.

Far down the hall, he could still hear the distant sounds of battle. He hadn't killed them all with that one blast. Maybe caused them to pause momentarily, but they wouldn't stop their fighting for anything.

He stood up again. And he began walking down the hall, toward the noises of war, reverberating down the ruined hall, hunks of heat-warped rock and tile falling from the ceiling. He continued to keep his face blank, his eyes focused on nothing. His pace quickened. He still heard his pulse in his ears, though he also heard the echo of the Aeesu-jin's voices, screaming as his blast enveloped them. B-bum, b-bum, b-bum.

He began running toward the battle.

He wanted to think this over.

But instead he was going to fight.

To be continued...


	38. CM38

Contradicting Mission

Part 38

Gohan's mighty blast had, in total, ended the lives of seventy-two Aeesu-jin and twenty-six aliens; ninety-eight deaths in all. Though it was a large number, enough that it would hang on the soul of Son Gohan for years to come, it had failed to destroy even half of the warriors on the battle field. 

It's intense shock waves had thrown nearly every battalion against the ground, save the sturdier forms of Heng and Bojack, or the Aeesu-jin who had managed to stand in the protected shelter behind them, or Freeza and Garlic, who had sidestepped the searing blast completely, and had, at the timely order from Garlic, ducked and covered their heads as the floor beneath them trembled from the explosion.

Bojack, who'd covered his face with an arm to avoid being blinded from the explosion, recognized the blast.

It had been the exact same -- exact same, goddamit -- move that had previously ended his own life; back then, it had been stronger, of coarse, had demolished his entire body, leaving not even a corpse behind to signify his past existence, nothing to testify for his agelessly long life. Were it possible, the Biraju-jin became yet more enraged, the side that had taken the brunt of the blast uninjured by certainly blackened somewhat, lacking some of the feeling in it. 

His eyes tore through the seething crowd of battling Aeesu-jin with as much distaste as one views the swarming maggots on a festering lump of meat. This was not a battle worthy of his time, and, after feeling the burning kiss of Son Gohan's attack, he was even more anxious to find the boy, perhaps, yes, for reasons beyond mere self-protection. He wanted to show the brat just how angry he was.

He grabbed hold of an Aeesu-jin daring to attack him -- one wearing a peculiar blue hat -- and swung him in a complete circle by his arm, hurling him into and through the already demolished halls of the 'battlefield'. Two Aeesu-jin attacked him from behind, pounding into his back with their bony knuckles, whipping at the backs of his legs with their thick, powerful tails, succeeding in breaking the skin in more than one place.

It was... a little concerning; betwixt the two armies he was up against, there was still thousands, battling all throughout the fortress, it was possible, however slight, that he could get... injured. If the situation were to shift and Heng were to abandon his fight with the mutinous Tahch-jin warriors to attack him again, while he was already battling his fair share of Aeesu-jin...

His first defeat and death at the hands of a mere boy ever present in his mind, he forced himself to comprehend that he was not invincible. He could be hurt. He could lose. He could... perish.

The wall blasted inward, littering Bojack's hair with little bits of tile, from a stray explosions of chi, coming from a battle on the other side of the wall.

Reaching up and behind his back, he caught hold of the Aeesu-jin's on his back by their curved horns, swinging them over his head to his front, breaking their horns in the process, before blasting their sorry selves into oblivion, stomping his foot down on the back of an amphibious alien as it happened to trip at the Biraju-jin's feet.

It was then that, over the roar of battle, that his sensitive pointed ears picked up the sound of a particular voice, quite a few octaves higher than that of the other warriors about, though raw with strain and emotion.

A voice Bojack instantaneously recognized as Son Gohan's, raging in the midst of battle.

The gaki was in this war, too, damn him.

* * *

On a conscious level, Gohan decided that he deserved a nice pat on the back for the control he had. 

Of course, he wasn't exactly thinking that the "control" he perceived having might merely be the coldness in which he killed his enemies, for it was indeed true that he felt nothing short of numbness as each Aeesu-jin that attacked him was quickly dispatched, him uncaring how as long as they died. Maybe it was control, for, situation considered, he felt no particular pleasure in their destruction; whenever he had the choice he tried to make it swift and without suffering.

Perhaps a year or two ago he would have thought, That doesn't matter, it's still murder... Perhaps would have thought the same a week or two ago. 

But he just didn't care, because, the truth was, he wasn't interested in worrying about it. 

He was sick of worrying. Sick of thinking. It did him no good; he was still going to have to be here, fighting, taking lives, being injured, perhaps seconds away from his own death. So he did something, unintentionally, that he did not know he could do.

He just switched off his worrying, keening, nit-picking, weak, human side. Just like that. With each footfall that took him into the heart of the battle, somehow, he just switched it off. Shut it out. Shut it up. Hid it. Buried it. Killed it. He didn't know. And he did not think about it. But it wasn't there. 

That isn't to say his rambunctious, energetic, spontaneous Saiya-jin side was running rampant. Oddly, it, too, had become silent, vanishing without a word along with the human side.

So Gohan was alone. The inner silence was sort of disturbing, but, hey, he had control, didn't he? Yes, oh, Tousan, yes, in control now. No mental turmoil to struggle with. A pleasant void, sucking every distinguishable thought into its dark, bottomless center like a black hole, leaving his body to move on its own, killing and fighting for... for what?

Ah, there, the one discernible thought; his drive. The force pushing him on. He saw Tousan in his mind, standing there as he always stood, his chest out, not intentionally cocky, but almost instinctively confident. Nothing really got to him, not pain or loss or death. So, in Gohan's mind, he stood, his orange gi in alignment, his face solemn in the midst of his wild locks.

What are you... a coward?!

The pleasant emptiness lasted until he looked up and saw, not more than fifty yards away, battling his own enemies with great success, was Bojack. His jaw dropped.

And then, even the empty void could not suck away all the emotion that welled up in him; he was afraid of the Biraju-jin, that he knew. And he hated him. Fear, hatred, anger, humiliation... All the emotions were so large, they clogged the black hole within him, stopped it up, allowing just enough room for his inner council to find their way forward again. 

Then his mind was chaos as they all started yelling at once.

Stupid, careless, dummy, moron...

What are you... a coward?!

Weak, helpless, coward...

I... I can't, daddy... it hurts too much...

Bojack hadn't seen him yet, and Gohan was moving rapidly away from him to keep it that way, not bothering to look over his shoulder as he instinctively ducked under an Aeesu-jin attacking him from behind, then, just as instinctively, his elbow flew backward and crushed the Aeesu-jin's rib cage. He was unaware it had happened.

Don't you dare go into battle without thinking...

Kill them all, they deserve it, you need this, destroy them, just blow them all up...

Gonna le_t..._ all those people die for nothing?! What did... Piccolo teach you?!

I don't know, I don't know, just shut up, stop it, shut up!!

I... I can't, daddy..

A thick, Aeesu-jin tail caught him around the waste, hoisted him off the ground and slammed him into the wall, the tiles crumbling around him, inaudible above the explosive din of battle, which, truthfully, he wasn't hearing too well at the moment, either.

Think! Think! Where's your brain, stupid?! 

That's it. That's it. I can't do it.

You're a machine, Gohan m'boy, a machine of destruction! Do your job!

What are you... cowa-

That's it. That's it. I can't-

-can't daddy, it hurts too-

-too much of a coward-

What are you?!

A blue hand entered Gohan's limited awareness just a split second before it contacted his face with a sudden sting of pain. 

The council ceased a moment; he'd been startled out of whatever it was that caught him up; he looked up; he found himself staring into the face of Bojack; his chi exploded around him.

He didn't really hear Bojack's deep, angry voice shouting, "-the hell is wrong with you?!" before he dove away from him, ducking between two bloody, brawling Aeesu-jin, a splattering of the blood they shed splashing into his face, his eyes, then dove around one of Henning's furry, fighting monstrosities, his only rational beacon that he had to get away, wiping the blood from his face with the back of his hand.

Behind him, the Biraju-jin was pursuing, his long, powerful arms throwing obstructing fighters out of his way with sweeps of motion and chi, his eyes trying to keep track of where the boy was heading in this pandemonium of battle. It was difficult, for the damnable bozu was using his size to escape, slipping between and around and through any narrow gap between the fighting Aeesu-jin, his body low to the ground, often traveling on both hands and feet, ducking between ankles and under stamping talons. 

He was too small to see very well over the huge titans that raged over him, unknowing of the little body gliding between their legs.

Gohan had managed to capture and contain the little wild element that had been running around inside him; the screaming, ranting, angry, crying, shaming council had been switched off by the utter shock of Bojack's slap -- though Gohan would never be able to admit he owed the Biraju-jin for the favor -- and for now, he was managing to keep his thoughts down to wordless ideas, not allowing either side of himself to speak except through notions or realizations.

It was then that he ran -- literally crashed headfirst into -- Heng.

* * *

Bojack swore loudly as he realized he'd lost sight of the boy again, smashing an amphibian creature's scaly head into its shoulders in his rage, wiping the nasty, dark blood off onto the corner of his coat. His severe gaze ripped through the throng, searching yet again for the damn kid, worried slightly that his actions had caused the boy to panic and break his fighting concentration.

He hated him, but he needed Son Gohan alive, goddamit.

To make worse things horrid, Bojack was sure that he'd caught a glimpse of Heng's impossibly large form through the sea of fists and tails and heads and horns and clashing chi, going about his own violent business, and Bojack knew not whether he should devote further time toward looking for Gohan -- damn him, damn him and every living breath he took -- or completing his (thrilling, if not infuriating) battle with the great Aeesu-jin dictator.

The decision was decided when both problems were addressed by the same occurrence.

For two chi's flared against each other at the same time, belonging both to the Saiya-jin boy and the Aeesu-jin giant, the shock wave of the increasing power knocking flat the other battalions for a short time, long enough for Bojack to catch sight of them both clearly. 

Heng was battling Son Gohan.

Having fought Heng himself, and thus becoming aware of his great Aeesu-jin might, Bojack did not like this prospect a bit. The boy -- how was he so weak now, and so strong back when Bojack had been on Earth?! -- would not survive the conflict. 

"Worthless, stupid bozu," Bojack murmured as he began to rip his way through the throng of battle, trying as hastily as he could to reach the two battalions of his attention before the skinny little kid got himself beaten to death.

As he got closer, however, the Biraju-jin found himself moving slower, watching with a measure of interest the way the boy fought. Eventually, sure, he would lose, but for now, he seemed to give off the impression of equality to Heng's power. For, as Bojack had become aware of earlier, the Aeesu-jin dictator was remarkably slow for all his power, his heavy padding weighting down his arms and legs, limiting the swiftness of his movements.

But the lithe Son Gohan was pure speed. 

Keeping his tiny little form as close to Heng's person as he was able, he made a nearly impossible target, for when the Aeesu-jin went to swat him away, the boy had only to twist just inches right or left to avoid the attack, and in the same movement drive both boots into his fat, gray face. Or when Heng went to stamp him into the ground, he seemed to manage to step entirely under the Aeesu-jin's great bulk, simultaneously flying up behind that great expanse of a back, all full of loose rolls of skin, and slam his little fist against the back of that great gray head.

Indeed, it seemed to be a stale mate, for, though Gohan was successfully striking the vital areas, they were either not vital areas to Aeesu-jin, or Heng's sturdy old frame was even tougher than Bojack had originally thought, for the boy's attacks seemed to hurt him about as much as his failed attacks seemed to hurt the boy.

The Biraju-jin was pretty sure Gohan's stamina would give out first -- considering his starved and already injured body. And when that happened, all he had to do was fail to dodge a single punch for, unlike Heng, he was not immune to impacts; a single hit was all Heng needed to break quite a few bones in that boy's body. The fight would end quickly afterward in Heng's favor and Gohan and Bojack's death.

But, for Bojack at least, the expression on Heng's face was worth the risk of death and return to eternal damnation. 

For, though Son Gohan's face was relatively calm, perhaps pinched and strained from his utmost concentration in what he was doing -- proving he at least knew of the deadly force he was reckoning with--, Heng was livid. He was screaming, his booming, powerful voice echoing up and down the halls, small flecks of froth dotting his lips and chin, his large, loose cheeks jiggling and shaking as he huffed and puffed, his loose, baggy skin swaying around his neck, his red eyes bulging in their sockets, a dark spot in the white of his eye showed a popped blood vessel, his face twisted and lined and wrinkled with hatred for this insignificant Saiya-jin boy that was daring to resist his executioning rights.

But then again, Bojack wasn't eager be die, either, and wasn't foolish enough to sit back and wait for the boy to be seriously or fatally wounded before interfering, despite how tempting it was to do so.

He closed the distance between himself and them.

* * *

"Are you quite okay?"

Sunow looked up, eyeing the Tahch-jin who, in turn, seemed to be inspecting him. "Pardon?"

Before Le'Armont could answer, the computer bipped and he had to type in four more codes at rapid session, wait two point six seconds, then repeat the codes backwards for verification, before the screen again read 'Processing' and he was again allowed a moment to speak, "I've noticed you're favoring your arm. And...," he almost said 'I feel pain coming off you' but stopped himself. "...and was just wondering if you were okay."

The Tahch-jin did not talk to non-Tahch-jin about their unique talents.

Sunow put a hand to his arm, just beneath the shoulder, "Oh. Yes, it was broken not too long ago. Trouble with a client. Thank you, though, for your concern." He was quiet a moment, then said, "You were the Tahch-jin that wanted to blow this planet up, weren't you? I mean... I'm sure it was the other one -- Henning Le'Armont? -- that wanted to kill Son Gohan. And the other one-"

"Yes. It was me."

Silence passed for a spell, interrupted when Joru was again given the short, allotted time in which he had to type in password after password, unlocking each digital door to get to the central nervous system of the pilfered program. Sunow watched him closely, watching is face more than what his hands were doing, calculating, curious.

"You don't want to anymore, right? Destroy this planet, that is..."

Joru hit 'Enter', read the analysis of their progress and put a hand to his queasy stomach, saying, "I'm so sick of destruction right now. I'm just sick to death of it. No, I don't want to detonate this planet; don't want to hurt anything or anyone ever again." 

Looking at his face, even through the pale white hair covering it, Sunow thought he looked a trifle ill; the color under those gold, Tahch-jin eyes was pretty dark, and Le'Armont kept working his mouth, licking his lips, as though he found a disagreeable taste on the back of his tongue. His hands, which the Aeesu-jin father assumed had once had hair, were bald and raw looking, and in his idle time Joru rubbed them together, trying to rid them of some residue that Sunow could not see.

Trying to get rid of the feeling he'd been forced to absorb through the Chah't scepter, the feeling of his brother's pain. He was forgetting why he was here; nothing was making sense to him. He did, however, remember Son Gohan's quiet, sweet voice. 

Joru-san? Will you come with me, now, and help me?

"Just a few more minutes," he said aloud, looking up at Sunow, his lips shivering as though he were fevered, "And I'll be done."

Nodding, the Aeesu-jin, hand still against his arm, nervy from all the stress, murmured, "Just a little longer, Son Gohan. Hang on."

* * *

The pure randomness of finding himself fighting against Heng suited Gohan quite well. 

The asylum of surprise had the amazing affect of keeping him rational, forcing him to reason, to respond to the real world around him. For this battle required all his attention, leaving no room for other, squabbling arguments.

He felt whole and at peace; enjoying both mental and physical stimulation, his body powered by more adrenaline and chi than hatred. His human and Saiya-jin sides were cooperating. As long as he managed to avoid Heng's devastating blows, he might actually survive long enough to-

-unsuspected, from behind him, Bojack had reached them and, without pause, in one swift movement had darted a hand out and caught the boy by the ankle as he flew by, jerking his little body backwards, literally dragging him out of the fight. Once he had the boy close enough, he circled his other hand around Gohan's throat, causing the boy to become suddenly quite still one he realized what a vulnerable position he was in; instantaneously maneuvered away from Heng's immediate vicinity. 

"Couldn't catch him?!" Bojack shouted as he ducked under the Aeesu-jin's long, thick tail, sidestepping a blast, maintaining his hold on both the boy's neck and ankle, though most of his attention was on Heng, taunting, "Couldn't even touch him! Slow, fat-"

The molten hot chi that suddenly flew over his head -- the Biraju-jin barely ducking to avoid losing a few inches of skull -- sailed on through the complex, melting wall and flesh, and on to the outside world. When it detonated, quite a few floors of the Underground collapsed, showering the warring armies with a dry snow storm of large clumps of ceiling and floor, bleaching everything white with fine powder.

By the time the thick dust in the air had settled, the hundreds of combatants that had gotten caught in the collapse coughing and squinting their eyes through the congested air, Bojack had managed to evacuate into the hidden room in which Freeza and Garlic were hiding; fortunately, the room had been spared during the destruction and was still quite safe, the entrance Freeza had made with his body partially buried under the rubble.

The silence that followed lasted only a few seconds; no Aeesu-jin had been damaged, and the war resumed through the dust and despris.

The original party was back together again. Bojack, Gohan, Freeza and Garlic.

The Aeesu-jin and gremlin didn't say a word, but stared in surprise and a bit of fear at the expression on the Biraju-jin's face, his full attention now allowed to devote itself to the Saiya-jin boy in his grip. He seemed almost too pleased -- a cruel, gleeful glint in his deep eyes -- to have his hand around the throat of Son Gohan who, besides wrapping his smaller hands around Bojack's, trying to pry it open, a panicky sort of desperation on his face, wasn't moving too much.

The brief notion came to Bojack that he could easily get a hold of the boy's tail but... well, he didn't particularly care about that. The tail was nothing but fur, and though, yes, it had an interesting affect on the Saiya-jin it wasn't as interesting as, say, the hot skin under his fingers, where he felt the boy's frantic, erratic pulse. If he were to just close his fist, he could crush the boy's neck, or tear his throat out. At his mercy, this gaki was entirely at his mercy... but Bojack had no mercy.

It was with extreme will power that Bojack, instead of killing the Saiya-jin boy, released his grip and heaved Gohan at the wall. 

Gohan spun to face him the instant he'd stopped his momentum. Oddly, his bruised and bloody face wasn't full of fear or embarrassment or even anger.

Actually, he wasn't feeling any of those things. He actually felt... gutsy. It was insane, but as he'd hung there, his weight dangling almost entirely by his neck, spots creeping in from his peripheral vision, he'd had a moment that felt akin to enlightenment, as though there had been a band of steel around his chest up until then and was slowly being pulled away, freeing him. 

He saw his father again, but not his cold, emotionless poker face; he saw that weird little smile Son Goku was known to get when a fight turned to its worst possible outcome... the smile he got just before something incredible happened and turned the tables entirely, and saved everyone's lives once again.

Bojack was yelling at him, but he didn't hear it over a peculiar rush that was pounding through his heart and chi.

Fighting against Heng who was, technically, stronger than him, he'd still managed to survive entirely unhurt. Hell, he'd hit that Aeesu-jin, had hit him and... and, well, he wasn't really that injured himself for the effort! Something inside Gohan's heart was lifting, as though a great weight were being pulled, slowly, off it, and the perpetual bad mood he'd been in for the past week seemed to be seeping away as his soul seemed to stretch out, filling out places that before had felt cold and unloving... 

"Son Gohan!!" In his ear, he heard the voice of Sunow, shouting into the communicator; he sounded suspiciously happy, too. "Son Gohan, we've done it, we've disabled-"

But then the communicator, in which Gohan had devoted such time and effort, exploded. 

The entire room was lit up with a bright golden light. 

Bojack, having stopped in mid-shout, stood with his jaw hanging open. Freeza and Garlic were pressed against the wall as the room suddenly filled with stifling hot power.

"It...," Gohan said, all his past rage and fear and hatred and hesitation transferring into raw chi, easily controllable now, "It worked." He looked down at his hands, his body, with electric blue eyes, no longer sable; looking through locks of hair that, no longer the color of starless midnight, were flaxen, swaying to the chi his body was generating.

"It really worked!!"

He was Super Saiya-jin.

At long last.

To be continued... 


	39. CM39

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 39**

In the mean of the times, whilst Son Gohan was standing before his three original companions in all his phenomenal, regained golden power, or before, when he was still battling Heng, before that yet, even, while preparing to launching his Kamehameha, the forgotten Tahch-jin, Henning Le'Armont, stood in his bedroom, alone.

His long arms crossed over his narrow chest, head cast down, leaning against a wall. His lower lip protruded in what could pass as either a pout or a scowl. It served as both, really. In one folded hand, he held his hat, no longer feeling playful enough to wear it, despising it as it reminded him of... things.

Littered about his feet were tissues he had used to soak up the blood that had flowed from his nose for quite a while, broken by the vicious Son Gohan, though, in actuality, his nose was the least of his worries: The grinding he felt when he walked suggested something amiss in his hip; the burning he felt when he breathed warned of internal damages.

On the bed sat Joru Le'Armont's cape and hat. Beside them, Henning had laid the deactivated Chah't scepter.

He wanted his brother.

Pushing away from the wall, running a hand through his blue hair to remove the stray stands from his sticky face, he scrubbed his eye with the back of a knuckle. He felt so hurt and tired. So alone. He'd cried, sobbed, when he'd first reached his room, throwing himself to the bed, clutching his brother's clothes...

He wanted so much to be mad at Joru. Wanted to be mad and hate him and... but he couldn't. It wasn't his brother's fault, was it? He'd requested so often, so politely, for Henning to give up on his search. Had he been jealous? Had he been ignored, neglected from the stimulating brotherly company he'd depended on since birth?

It was a moment that Henning felt his mind unveiling, allowing him to see this situation, painfully, from a different perspective. Through the anger and fear and jealousy and emotional ache ingrained in his brother's cape... The stark horror of Joru Le'Armont through the hilt of the Chah't scepter. 

It was entirely his own fault. It hurt terrible to think it, but, though he wanted to blame someone else, to blame the Aeesu-jin, to blame Joru, to blame the animalistic Son Gohan (he'd done it his entire life, hadn't he? Blamed others. Why not now...?) But this was a matter that couldn't be solved with such tactics.

Joru was a highly sensitive individual.

Henning, fighting down panic, had a feeling that if he didn't find his brother and soon, they would never be able to patch things back up. To make them the way they used to be. The way they had been... before traveling through space. When they were still young and innocent children on the tidy civilization of Tahch-sei. They could go back, couldn't they? They could go back and live peacefully together on their planet, no more adventuring. No more exploring. No more hurting. Searching would be done. 

They would have peace.

He couldn't see himself wanting to look for anything more in the unloving vacuum of space.

Finally, Henning was satiated. He no longer craved the feeling of a life being shredded beneath his careful eye, for pain would forever remind him of his brother. And the still burning feeling in his body that the Chah't had left. The mental trauma of being beaten by Son Gohan could not match with the pain now associated with betrayal. It hurt his heart.

But he could not think of the boy.

He had to find his brother. Find it and apologize. Yes, kneel and apologize, beg if necessary. Beg for Joru to forgive him for ignoring him, and to return with him to home. To Tahch-sei. 

He picked up his hat... then set it back down again. He didn't want to wear it. His fingers wrapped around the Chah't scepter, lifted it up, inspected it, turned it over in his hands, feeling the years of pain and horror imbedded in it. Feeling his own pain through it. Feeling where his brother's delicate grip had been.

A single deft movement.

He broke it over his knee.

The halved pieces fell to the floor.

He exited his room, unarmed, searching for his lost brother.

* * *

Originally, it had taken _three full days_ of existing in constant transformation for Gohan to get used to the feeling of Super Saiya-jin, and even then it felt strange to him for a good month more, and, after that, through all the intense training with his father, though 'used to it', it had taken roughly _five months_ for him to be able to truly consider the form 'comfortable'.

He'd never liked the way he looked when he was in this form. After he had returned home from the Room of Spirit and Time, the first time he looked in the mirror -- for there were no mirrors in the Room -- he'd actually shuddered. There was something creepy about the way the eyes were so... void. Pupiless. Cold. After that, he avoided mirrors for a long time, unable to look himself in the face when it was so foreign. He went so far as to take the mirror hanging on the back of his door down and hid it under his bed. Washed and brushed his teeth outside to avoid the bathroom looking glass. He would never be able to look comfortably at himself in any stage besides his generic one.

If asked to describe in one word how the new, stronger form felt, he would only be able to use the word "inhuman".

And that would probably explain why he found it so difficult to get used to, as, for rational purposes, he depended equally on both of his natural heritages, most especially his _human_ side (which, though it wasn't peaceful in itself, was usually at least more reasonable than his Saiya-jin inclinations). 

But somewhere in the chemical reaction that triggers the spectacular golden metamorphosis, and the action itself, the thicker of the human blood is bleached from the increasingly Saiya-jin system, leaving -- in Gohan's case at least -- a rather mixed up individual with most of his wires misaligned, forced to find new, less comfortable ways for mental connections to be made.

His chi was enflamed, popping almost audibly like fire alight on a still-green branch, not entirely controlled -- he hadn't intentionally transformed, and his emotions were temporarily rampant. He glanced left, right. His three 'allies' were looking at him with mixed, relatively pensive expressions; they all were not without fear. 

Unlike Bojack and Freeza, Garlic Junior had never seen this stage in Saiya-jin evolution. (Indeed, he still wasn't entirely clear on what a Saiya-jin _was_ in comparison to Earthlings, or that Gohan, per say, was one.) But, unlike the other two, he did not need to learn through personal experience what sort of power this new being possessed.

He felt its chi. Its boiling, rolling, hissing chi. It seemed so much more akin to emotion than normal chi. Angrier. As though it were a living thing. And it didn't stay embodied. It sort of... wriggled out of Gohan. Hovered not only inside the gaki's body, but on the outside, too; pulsing like a violated heart, cold and impending as ice, searing and consuming the very air molecules as a hungry flame engulfs a sun-dried prairie.

Under his tattered and chi-blackened cowl, Garlic's small shoulders were trembling.

_Hrwack!_ The whip of a Saiya-jin tail, the fur of which was now only browned at its roots, growing lighter in shade along each hair until the tips were a yellow-white, looking as though it were powdered with gold dust.

The Saiya-jin was searching, testing its new power now that the Human was smothered behind the bright saffron curtain. It felt peaceable enough. It was rational. It needed no weak Chikyuu reasoning. It had perfect control.

It was a trap, Gohan recognized on a vague, listless level. This form was a living trap. It was his angry, unstoppable power, the same that had plagued him his whole life, full of hatred and rage and feral abandon, but now it was seen with the mask of containment. It was convincingly calm. Controlled. His only way of knowing everything was anything but fine was that it had no worry.

None. No fear. 

His tail was extended unprotected.

It was pure confidence. The irrational, mindless confidence of the Saiya-jin... or not mindless so much as careless. 

_This is great. Now you win, Gohan m'boy. _

_You win. That's it._

_No one can beat you_...

It sounded so convincing. So very convincing. It _would_ have convinced him had he not heard it all before. All the time. Every time he dared to use this alien, dangerously Saiya-jin mold. It always claimed victory in advance, deep down, beneath his jumbled attempts at sensibility. It didn't really comprehend defeat. Wouldn't admit its plausibility. It was, and thus it would win.

Searching, so very calmly, blank, cool eyes roving. _Take it easy, Gohan m'boy. No rush. You've already won. Just relax_...

Sight landed on Bojack.

Something very unspecific lit across his face. It didn't flash, so much as subtly alter itself in a way that was so vague, so barely noticeable, that one would be unaware of it were they not personally present to witness the change occur. A sort of hardening of expression; akin to wet cement drying. Lips pressing minutely together, eyes narrowing just the slightest of hairs. It became less... human. Almost empty, with with a sharpness to it, an animal ferocity to every movement, a tearing, the way his nostrils flared as he breathed -- yet such calm, even breaths -- or the way his void, empty eyes blinked in severe rapidity. 

Or the way his tail swung so slowly and patiently, yet seemed to have a presence of _lashing_.

Bojack's spine chilled and his next movement was both a step forward and a step back, as though he were moving to confront and flee at the same moment. Other than that, he moved little, determined to not be intimidated. Not... just... yet. 

Freeza was having a certain amount of difficulty with the process of systematically inhaling and exhaling. He couldn't breath.

Indeed, he had known since beginning this quest that Son Gohan had the ability to attain the legendary Super Saiya-jin level; and even without it he had more power within his boyish body than any other Saiya-jin he'd come across in his long Aeesu-jin life. But then, it wasn't really the boy's power that unnerved him so. More, it was the blunt, in-your-face fact that here, standing right before him, was the one thing he harbored a _hysterical_ fear for within his cold Aeesu-jin interior.

Yellow luminescence, pale hair, light so intense, yet somehow internal, beneath the surface skin of the transformed being, bleaching the skin from beneath to a pale near-white, the hair of his head swaying to the driving waves of power generated by his burning chi, upsetting the air around him, scalding the oxygen closest to his body till his whole figure looked as though it were on fire.

But it was the eyes.

Pupiless. Possessing both an eerily empty quality, as well as an ultimately _passionate_ appearance. The calm green of the sea and the burning electricity of neon sapphire. Pure control and utter abandon.

He kept his reptilian body pressed against the far wall, now that the transformation inhibitor restricting him was gone, he partially transformed by pure instinct, his system registering a threat. His size increased a foot, his horns curving slightly. Despite his growing size, he tried to make himself smaller yet, drawing as little attention to himself as possible, unable to help recalling old memories of death and torment at the hands of other individuals with such bright, golden powers.

Such blank, hateful eyes.

He couldn't stand those eyes.

_Ttp_... _Ttp_... _Ttp_...

The delicate, unmasked pat of Gohan's boots as he moved.

He was walking forward, his gold-dusted tail trailing almost reluctantly behind him, toward the mighty frame of the Biraju-jin. His chi spat again, loudly, as he neared the giant, the currents of air causing Bojack's lava mane to stir.

The attack was almost instantaneous.

Not even Gohan expected it on a conscious level.

He just knew that, quite suddenly, he had committed _some_ form of movement; his feet were no longer touching the ground --

-- the only solid matter resisting his movements was the soft, warm skin of Bojack's cheek, against which his fist was currently sporting all his power.

For a split second, time stood still; the boy's enhanced eyes (yet again improved through the transformation) could make out every slight detail of Bojack's face; he saw that jagged scar running diagonally over the bridge of that broad, flat nose. He noticed that somewhere in the past battles, Bojack had lost his bandana; he even had the time to ponder where it had gone... He saw that with his boyish knuckles buried in that blue face, those blue lips were partially twisted open, exposing large, round teeth.

And then the resistance against his fist was gone, as the great blue giant stumbled backwards, his head cocked at the angle in which the punch had positioned it.

And then Bojack regained his footing.

He'd lost three feet.

But that was all.

"Still-," he said as he straightened himself, then moved, simultaneously, one hand to catch hold of Gohan's shoulder, the other drawn back as far as it would go, curled tightly, "-not-," and this time used every ounce of the force within him to thrust a bony fist downward, holding nothing back, returning the favor, struck the boy in the face, "-enough."

Gohan hit the ground shoulder first.

Hard.

It was then that he realized... he'd forgotten.

Even on Earth, with his allies and transformations entirely on his side, when he had first been forced to battle Bojack for the fate of his planet, it had taken his _all_ to defeat -- ... to kill... -- him.

In fact, hadn't it taken--

(....!)

-- It was unspoken, but a dark, powerful viselike grip closed off the thought, disallowing the possibility. Forcing him to not think about it.

He was quickly on his feet again, this time to take a stance that was -- while well defended -- offensive. His tail was not quite twisted to the safety of his waste, but was still loosely twined around the frame of his hips to keep it out of the way. He was going to fight Bojack, he imagined. Gonna get that revenge his Saiya-jin side had wanted. Use every resource, gonna use that--

(....!)

Thought cut off again. He didn't quite see it clearly, but he knew, deep down, that it was the human in him, trying to warn him of... something. Filling him with a spine-chilling sense of impending destruction. Foreboding. But the message was unclear; his starved, desperate, Saiya-jin body couldn't heed warnings that inhibited action. And the sense of approaching doom only succeeded in driving himself to a state of half-panic.

He moved in.

Bojack moved to meet him.

They engaged.

* * *

Something had gone wrong in the war.

The halls seemed to have... shrunk since Gohan and Bojack had ducked out; the walls squeezed in tighter around the battalions large bodies.

But it hadn't been the corridors that had changed sizes.

It was the Aeesu-jin. They were growing, twisting, transforming; the steady, rolling battle chi was swelling; bodies expanded, tails elongated, horns curled longer and sharper and harder. The movement of the room's focus had gone from the back and forth, horizontal, block and parry rhythm to a mass of moving, changing flesh. One could hear above the roar of battle the sounds of sturdy bones relocating themselves, organs realigning.

The Underground was crumbling. The air was dry and burning to the lungs, whipping and whistling like underground cyclones. The planet trembled across its crust and deep into its mantel. The mountains that had protected the Underground for so very long _split_ under the pressure of the quaking soil with a thunderous ripping sound, a _CRACK!!_ that echoed for leagues above and below ground. Sun light was cast miles down ward into rooms that had never before _seen_ sun light.

But even after such massive damage, the fighting did not stop.

It was no longer a battle between Henning and Heng's forces. It was more than moving on orders. Were either the Tahch-jin brothers or Heng to step forward and call for retreat, the order would have gone ignored.

It was now a fight for principal. The Aeesu-jin that had joined with the Le'Armonts had done so because they did not approve of the Aeesu laws as they were. They craved change, ratification, rule under a law other than the illusive, mysterious entity known as Heng. While the Heng-loyal soldiers, satisfied with their current position, could not forgive them their rebellious deviance.

The battle would last down to the final, lone survivor.

And so it raged onward, surging ever closer toward the heart of the Tahch-jin fortress.

Toward the main control room.

Which was where Heng, specifically, wanted to go.

A long, wide sweep of his tail cleared a path through those standing in his way, uncaring if they were on his side or not. He stepped out of the battling, and ran on ahead.

He was rampant.

He would have his control back.

He would kill Bojack and he would kill the Saiya-jin boy.

But, oh, first! First, for the sake of dignity, and pride, for the sake of _sanity_--

--he would have his control back from the Tahch-jin. The bloody, stupid Le'Armont Tahch-jin.

As he charged on, he moved out of sight of the flashing, twisting war behind him, tearing his immense way down the hall.

Unknown, he was headed toward unsuspecting Sunow and Joru Le'Armont.

Unknown, he, too, was transforming, even as he traveled.

* * *

Aeesu-jin Sunow and Joru Le'Armont felt victorious for approximately four minutes for their accomplishment.

And then, they felt absolutely terrified.

The ground beneath them trembled and bucked violently, chunks of plaster fell from the ceiling to hop and jump on the shaking floor. A few concerning sparks jumped from the electronics, popping loudly. In one section of the room, the floor had caved in; luckily, no equipment was lost. 

Sunow, standing _half_ the size of the Tahch-jin, had an easy time finding his center of gravity, his broad, well-spread toes finding reasonable footing. Joru, whose height doubled Sunow's, found that such a tall frame, so far from the ground, was difficult to keep erect. He held onto the computer for support.

"What's going on!?" the Tahch-jin's voice was barely audible over the raucous rumbling coming at them from all sides.

"An Aeesu-jin nightmare...," Sunow murmured, his scarlet eyes wide, searching the room in case another section of floor were to give out, "Aeesu-jin are transforming by the thousands... millions. Oh, Kami, I hadn't really thought about it, before. Son Gohan, what did you make me do?! This planet - I don't now if this planet can take this amount of abuse!"

"Then let's change it back!" Joru's long fingers were already beginning to dance over the control pads.

"Wait-," Sunow's small Aeesu hand snatched his digits away, "- this might be Son Gohan's only chance..."

"But what if-"

A deep, Aeesu-jin breath, "We'll have to ask him."

A long moment of silence followed.

Finally, hands spread imploring, "Son Gohan is in the middle of the battle. In order to _ask_ him-"

"Yes." Sunow was trembling, his mind flashing uncontrollably back to his children, unprotected in the wilderness, alone --would he ever see them again? But he was resolute, "I gave my word to help that boy however I could. He's convinced me that being able to transform-"

"Saiya-jin transformations aren't that powerful..."

"-that being able to transform was his only means of survival."

"We'll be killed before we ever find-"

"I'm not turning the inhibitor back on until I know it's necessary."

They stared each other in the eyes, Joru's gold to Sunow's ruby, their wills battling. The Tahch-jin looked away first.

They headed for the door, Le'Armont's head lowered in weary defeat.

* * *

There was a presiding sense of purposelessness.

Gohan was becoming increasingly aware of it. 

Too slow to dodge it, not strong enough to block it, he threw his palms against the bottom of Bojack's approaching fist -- flying for his already bloody face -- and pushed it up, off target, to sail harmlessly over his head. He felt desperate and cornered... using the opening to his advantage, he managed to twice ram his heel into Bojack's exposed ribs and kidneys before his foot was caught at the ankle and savagely jerked; it would have shattered quite a few bones had he not twisted the rest of himself with it, breaking free at the same time.

His already freed foot went for the jaw; the kick was too rushed -- Bojack was really pushing his defenses; too hard to attack much -- and it showed. His target moved. He missed, barely brushing past a few red hairs. In almost the same instant, his arms crossed protectively over his head without him commanding it, moving on instinct, saving his skull from another mind-jarring impact of a great blue elbow.

There was no point to his fight.

Gohan knew it.

Below, for miles and miles on end, throughout the entire Underground, Aeesu-jin chi were bloating; the boy felt it happening in the back of his mind. Growing and changing. The hairs of his tail were on end, the dark roots tingling. It was an unnerving thing to feel; he'd never before in his life felt so many massive chi's in one place. And he hoped he never would, if he survived this.

It was frightening, but the boy wasn't aware a blow had been landed on him until his back hit the ground -- hard enough that he continued down, through the floor for a few inches, sharp chunks of rock and plaster exploding around him, tearing his suit and flesh, the sounds of his tough bones grinding against tile filled his ears. Surprised, he tried to gasp only to find he couldn't immediately breath, tried again, finding it difficult to draw a breath, as though he already had air in his lungs, dead air, and despite his attempts there was no room to suck more in.

After a moment of choking, pained and temporarily forgetting that after inhale came exhale, he was already on his feet again.

This battle was accomplishing nothing. It was useless. In fact, it was _dangerous_.

Gohan was entirely conscious of that fact.

He left the ground, the floor where he had stood collapsing under the shockwave of his movement. He had to keep his attacks high, couldn't keep his feet on the ground or he'd only have his hands to block all of Bojack's attacks -- and that just wasn't enough. 

Fighting people so much bigger than himself was a double-bladed sword; speed was ever at his advantage, he simply didn't have as much mass to resist his movements. But he lacked the power Bojack possessed in his large, hard muscles. And he had to move in closer, which made it difficult -- the Biraju-jin's arms and legs were longer, allowing him to strike at greater distances.

Bojack had the advantages, Gohan was finding out as an icy clamp was moving around his heart, fear, though he wouldn't admit he was afraid yet. Bojack had the power advantage. And he had size. He was... stronger. It hurt even Gohan's shredded, limited pride. He knew that Bojack was stronger. 

All he had at his use was speed. And perhaps tactics. 

He wished Tousan were there. He would win. He always won.

Oh, kami, it hurt his small arms to block those punches. In his open hands, he barely caught a searing ball of orange chi, his arms shaking with the effort, almost lost it, almost slipped and let the scalding energy burn into his body. Then he threw the chi aside, where it blazed into and decimated a good handful of battling Aeesu-jin. He only glanced at his palms a minute before having to look away; they were burned and raw, the flesh red and wet and juicy.

Gohan noted, though not able to allow much thought go into it, that the battle was still moving, rampaging down the hall, in the direction of Sunow and Joru.

This was an inappropriate time to be having a fight with Bojack.

Gohan knew this all too well.

Dust and plaster clung to both of their hair as it fell from the shaky, sagging ceilings, the mountain's weight slowly coming down, down, down...

Gohan layered his hands over his head, centered his chi there, every cord and tendon tightening within his compact little body, then threw it forward. 

Bojack could not sense chi, but even without such a remarkable skill he knew better than to try his luck weathering the blast. He barely stepped aside in time, avoiding a full collision with the raw power as it burned past him, though it came into just enough contact with his shoulder to fry through his sleeve. 

A great scale more Aeesu-jin were removed from the war as it continued past them, burned through the walls, and continued on into the depths of the Underground; when it finally exploded, three levels and hundreds more Aeesu-jin went with it, many lost or uncounted for as stories and stories above collapsed from the lost support, burying multitudes.

Bojack noted a raw, sticky wetness on the shoulder the blast had hit. Looking down at it, his frown deepened.

It had burned him. Smartly.

He did not like that. He was mad. He couldn't remember a time when he was angrier. There was something terribly wrong with... everything, and his aged Biraju-jin senses were insisting that _something_ had to change. The way the bozu was fighting, perhaps. There was something painfully incorrect, incoherent, about it; something so utterly _wrong_ that his movements were entirely unpredictable.

Or perhaps that was it. It was so utterly unpredictable that Bojack soon found no pattern to his attacks and blocks. No strategy. No technique. The boy was not fighting with purpose, not to specifically _do_ _anything_; he was fighting to fight. To move in and out, striking just to strike, blocking for the sake of blocking. It was growing on Bojack's nerves.

On passing, he wished his fellow Biraju-jin friends were here with him. On Earth, with their aid and combined power, it was more than easy to compete with this boy, even with this strange golden power... between the four of them (alas, Bidu, Fujin, alas even the coward Zangya) they had discovered that, if beaten badly enough, these Saiya-jins lost their transformations and reverted back to their original, weaker, generic states. Between the four of them, they had reigned, gaining the greatest of advantages over any warrior.

With their help, Bojack had been able to easily beat the bozu out of his transformation. And then beat him some more. And, if he'd so wanted, he could have done more after that. 

He longed for them, now. Longed for their aid, to help him wreak revenge on this cursed boy, longed for them to come, with their psychic webs in which to snare this boy, drain him of his power, hold him nice and still and helpless so he could...

The gaki managed to slither beneath his raised leg -- dodging his kick -- and Bojack only had time to watch as he twisted his whip-thin body around an attempted block to come so very close, face inches from face, before slamming his bony little elbow deep into his blue throat.

Bojack, unable to breath, for the moment cared less about his own pain than about the pain he wanted to unleash on that boy, on his skinny little body, and he swung his entire arm at the shoulder to crash a fisted hand into the small of the boy's back. The kid went down hard, face-first, into the tiles.

And Bojack almost did it. He _almost did it_. It was stopped by a matter of millimeters, but he did.

He almost delivered a killing blow, a bladed hand stopped so very close to the boy's exposed, unprotected back. 

He had been so caught up in the want -- _need_ -- to kill the boy, that he had forgotten-

-he couldn't.

It wasn't allowed.

And then the gaki was on his feet again, throwing himself back, a look of some strong emotion on his face, though it was difficult to tell which; those eyes were still empty as ever. But it could have been fear. Could very possibly have been fear, as he realized how close he had come to being killed. Bojack did not know, though he did notice how the boy's hands trembled so... Or the way his tail hugged so tightly to his waste now, the hairs on it standing out like spines. 

And the Biraju-jin understood.

This was only _allowed_ to be a fight; there could be no ending; for this was a fight to the death. But neither could die.

They maneuvered again forward to fight. Gohan wanted, under the mask of Saiya-jin insistence, to go and protect Sunow and Joru.

And Bojack just wanted to kill him.

Neither would get their way.

* * *

Not far in the distance, Joru and Sunow -- neither of which possessed particularly noteworthy hearing abilities -- could make out the sounds of battle, just barely, over the rumbling of the Underground and the almost endless crashings of ceiling falling onto floor, floor collapsing to floor below, and below, and below, and so on to the very lowest of the Lower Class.

They stumbled as they walked, leaning heavily against the wall to keep them standing on the shaky, jerking ground. Sunow, walking in front of Joru, paused as the ground beneath him began to sag, backed up to watch as the floor he had previously been standing on sunk down, down, then collapsed, raining into the floor beneath. Sunow didn't pause as he flew over the gap, his face void, his hands trembling as he watched and felt and knew that the only place he had ever lived, where he had grown up, where he had found his first job, where he had gotten his first apartment, was slowly destroying itself, dropping so very swiftly into ruin.

The Underground was falling apart. Whether he survived or not, his children would never see it again; not as it had once been. With this severe of damage... it would never be the same.

So shaken up and emotionally alone was he that he failed to look back to see if Joru Le'Armont was following.

He wasn't.

And in that fact, he wasn't behind him at all.

Somewhere behind the Aeesu-jin's running back, his stubby tail, the hall had forked into two directions, through the right hall, one could smell the burned ozone of battle involving chi. Sunow, so caught up with running, not wanting to think, hadn't paused as he took the _left_ hall, heading toward the west. Away from the fighting.

He sort of knew it was the wrong way. He really did. But he couldn't really explain it; he had no intention of turning the inhibitor back on. Let the Aeesu-jin destroy themselves. Sunow was heading for the exit. He was going to get his children, and they were going to leave this planet. Leave it and let whatever happens happen without his interferance.

Joru, having fallen behind at the gap in the hall floor -- he could not fly, and had a hard time mustering the courage to jump it -- had not seen which way Sunow had gone, and took the hall to the right, heading directly toward the battle. He was looking for Son Gohan, but then he began to slow down.

Something in the air... an urgency from another direction; he paused, looked over his shoulder. He was in that stage where, after one fiasco after another, one has taken a temporary step back to draw breath, where adrenaline has burned itself up, leaving weary caution behind to tend to the body. 

His Tahch-jin senses picked up a certain despiration to the air, but it wasn't coming from the foreign, hating airs coming off the Aeesu-jin fighting ahead of him. It came from behind... and it had a certain aluring, affectionate desperatness to it. A hopeless hope... it was...

"Henning...," Joru murmered, and he turned to look down the hall, waiting, losing his balance a moment as half the floor beneath him rained out from beneath his feet.

And then, he felt it stronger, growing closer. It wasn't telepathy, but something purely Tahch-jin; broadcasted empathy, emotion and sensation, mixed with a certain wash of actualy physical feeling, like a retained rememberance of a warm hug, a kiss, a long, deep trench of memories and knowledge and the functioning of a mind. In it was a hopeful despair, a desire for something that felt impossible. But mixed together, it formed what could almost be described as words.

And from the distance, the words spoke: _Oh, please wait for me, Brother; Don't leave; I'm coming!_

Joru's balding hands pressed against his chest, over his fluttering heart. A drop of warm moisture struck his hand; he hadn't known he was crying.

He saw, running down the hall toward him, an arm raised to wave, was Henning; it was a hobbling jog, limped, one hand against his hip to keep him supported. But it was a run of zeal. Even with his injury, the Tahch-jin ran, his long, powerful legs pumping, his mouth open to catch enough breath, staggering and stumbling over the unstable ground, uncaring of anything other than running, his cape flying behind him.

His arms spread, Joru rushed to greet him, smiling through his tears.

As they embrased, their wet cheeks pressed together, their senses opened fully, and they melted into eachother's consciousness, seeking reassurance as they had once done so often as children, absorbing through their linked awarness the pain they felt at their dissagreement, regret, their fear toward one another. Sorrow. Delight to be together again. A great, presiding residue of mystification: Had they really argued? How could that be? They were of one mind...

Words of appology were unnecessary.

Words of any sort.

From Henning, Joru felt the inclination to return to their home land, to see their parents again, to stop roaming. To stop disagreeing. A longing for things to be as they had once been, in simpler times. Happier times. There was no thought in his mind, leaning neither way, about Son Gohan. This did not involve him.

Joru's agreeance was just as easy to read, though it blended in with Henning's eagerness until it was lost in their mutual, loving sense of sibling understanding.

And then a stark chill ran between them as they felt through the air that they were not alone. Looking up as one, they saw that the target they had been looking for all this time, Heng, was sharing space in their hall as well, breathing their same air, occupying their same space.

He was different, transformed, and terrible. And the rage he radiated was so molten that there was a wonder the Tahch-jin's fur didn't curl and blacken as they percieved it.

For Heng now beheld them that had humiliated him, stripped him of his power, and beheaded over half his carefully maintained organizations.

There was a sense of slow motion to all three of them, in which time the rumbling destruction of the Underground was muted.

They could hear the air move around Heng's hands as he raised them, the sizzle of aura and air as he collected his impossibly aged chi.

And the pop, as he released it from his hold, allowing it to fly free to destroy.

Joru and Henning looked up at the descending orb of energy, demolishing its destructive path through the floor, the walls, the ceiling, tearing up clumps of tile and dust and debris as it neared them; it seemed that everything in existence was quaking, everything but that burningly bright light, which seemed to move toward them in the slowest of motions. It was brilliant blue, a color so bright and strong that all things surrounding them were bathed and enriched in a cold white light.

Every wrinkle of their faces was illuminated, every inch of fur and skin, every cuticle over their fingernails and the gums over their perfect little teeth. The lashes of their eyes, the veins in their hands, the taste buds of their tongues. Gleamed off their still damp tears.

It filled every chamber of their ears. The hairs of their head.

A Tahch-jin thought passed betwixt them, so very clear, yet distant enough that neither knew which mind it had originated from between their melded consciousness.

_It's actually quite beautiful isn't it, brother?_

A pause of thoughtful, lasting silence.

_Yes. I suppose it is._

Their faces grew yet more relaxed and peaceful, solaced with the understanding presence of one another.

As one, they closed their eyes.

They did not feel the impact as it ripped their bodies from the ground, grinding their bones and instantaneously scalding their existence to a fine gray ash.

And then the two Tahch-jin, Joru and Henning Le'Armont, brothers, deep space explorers, adventurers, pioneers in the rugged universe outside of their quaint Tahchsei planet, were no more. They hadn't gone home.

They had perished together.

**To be concluded...**

**Previous Part**** -- ****Contradicting Mission**** -- ****Next Part**

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	40. CM40

This was supposed to be the final part. I was even so presumptuous to end the last part with "To be concluded..."

I was wrong. 

I could not end it so abruptly, the very thought put me into a near catatonic state, and I found myself unable to so much as look at this part without feeling a gutwrenching _hole_ rip open in my stomach (thus the two months or so it took to produce this part.) See, I've been working on this particular series for two years come this August, and when it's gone, I was convinced I was going to lose my mind.

Fortunately, on this little break I've had from CM, I allowed my mind to expand, and I'm now feeling more confident and assured that ending this fic is the right thing to do. Though this is not the last part, the last part shall come hopefully some time soon; I might be able to time it right to end it on the two year anniversary of its creation... But I'm not making promises.

* * *

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 40**

Doctor Koda, once sequestered in his hidden Lower class apartment, had decided to evacuate from his safe place when the first tremors began to rattle the shelves of his modest dwelling.

He traveled the halls skyward at as great a speed as his inherited power and might would carry him -- "running his tail off", as his students would have called it...

His bulk was shifting as he ran, altering his power and appearance as fear lapped at the lower elements of his awareness, increasing as the first beginnings of the ceiling began to crumble and rain down on his massive head. It was fortunate that, besides his generally calm nature and resistance to panic, he had also been once privileged with a change to venture off the planet to realize and maintain the greater of his other form's power.

Thus, he had little distraction and difficulty controlling himself, even when his brow lowered slightly over his eyes to better protect his vision, or when his horns slid further toward the back of his head, simultaneously curving over the carapace shell protecting the top of his skull, pointing in front of him as though guiding him on which direction to go.

_Why_ he was transforming, however, was beyond him, though the answer was painfully obvious. It was the fear of every Aeesu-jin once they reached the maturity to realize what unfathomable power they possessed. The transformation inhibitor had been turned off. There was no control, now, and as the hypothesis's of the great scientists of old had guessed, it seemed to be the end of the peace for the Aeesu-jin, and a violent conclusion to the great creation called the Underground.

He was heading for the surface.

There was little true resistance leaving the Lower Class levels into the Middle class; mayhem was erupting around each turn, as inexperienced and frightened Aeesu-jin gave way to the rising tide of jumbled Aeesu-jin intentions; new, powerful hormones giving them intentions they'd never before known, never before knew existed in their normally calm, polite exteriors.

Collapse of the Underground was imminent, but now that the good doctor was no longer considered a loyal or even accepted citizen of the Underground as it was ruled by Heng, he wasn't entirely displeased to see it fall... He just wasn't interested in being beneath it when it happened.

He reached the exit of the Underground, along with a small group of other Aeesu-jin that seemed to also think escaping to be a much better idea than remaining. The door was opened by a stranger that the doctor did not know, and the Aeesu-jin were greeted with a heavy gust of fresh, clean air of the Outside -- as foreign to them as their transformations.

The Aeesu-jin, the good doctor included, took to the skies, eyeing just a moment the vast, gentle purple expanding above them... Before noting that all the skies were filled with refugee Aeesu-jin, so thick they almost appeared to be clouds of multiple colors, with long, thick tails swinging comfortingly beneath them and brisk ebony horns protruding to the skies above their gleaming metallic heads.

They hovered, a good thousand or so, all transformed and scared and confused, creating a large, silent circle around the largest, central mountain, watching in silent horror as explosions from beneath it rocked it to its hollow, populated core, tearing free whole crags of of wicked rock, avalanching them down the mountain side.

Inside were the Aeesu-jin who hadn't the sense to evacuate; they battled endlessly on, under the tremulous but incredible weight, more than an estimated million pounds, of cold, solid stone.

Glancing amongst the floating throng, the good doctor thought he might have spied a familiar face.

Shoulder between two oblivious onlookers, he cupped a hand to his mouth and called, "Sunow? I say, is that you, Sunow?"

The green Aeesu-jin glanced up from the ruinous spectacle. He had changed some as well it seemed: his coloring was darker and his limbs had extended -- his thick tail had all but doubled in size. His horns, which had once looped behind his head like a ram had twisted like cork screws, now more resembling the majestic rack of a gazelle.

"Doctor Koda-san?" The man answered back, flying around a cluster of obstructing Aeesu-jin to reach the doctor. It was indeed Sunow.

The doctor, unable to find a better thing to say, asked, "Where is Son Gohan?"

The younger Aeesu-jin gestured at the trembling, dying mountain with his pointed chin, "Down there, last I knew." He reached up slowly to remove something that appeared electronic from his ear, dropping it the few miles spanning beneath them, "I can't hail him over the communicators... his must have been destroyed."

"Where did you-" the doctor began to inquire before being cut off as the masses of Aeesu-jin clogging the great purple sky all began to gasp and make small noises in their throats. A roar came from the mountain below and, with a final shudder, it began to slowly sink into the ground. Dust and crushed rock and compressed air spewed miles into the air, choking the silent witnesses as it lowered down, down, into the vast reaching Underground.

Half way in, up to its formidable peaks, like a swimmer with nur but his head above water, it gave another roar as though in pain and paused its descent. It seemed to be just hovering. Shuddering. Grinding. Quivering, as though it were aware its majesty was coming to a final close.

"Come," Sunow said quietly, putting a hand on the doctor's arm, turning away from the great mountain's tragedy, "Help me find my children. We all must leave this planet at once."

"Yes...," the good doctor responded, taking a last sympathetic look at the horrid majesty of destruction, "Yes."

They flew off over the trembling landscape.

* * *

The war had died down in the upper levels of the Underground. Indeed, nearly all the fighting in the Tahch-jin fortress had come to its macabre end; the tiles were slick with gore. The walls streaked and splashed, burned, broken. Bodies and pieces of bodies littered the floor; draped over the rubble of former walls, or hanging down through holes in the floor to drip into lower levels, strewn across the floor. The hulking pieces of mountain that crashed downward toward the planet's core descended almost slowly under the rising chi from below.  
  
Farther below, the aggression that accompanies the Aeesu-jin transformations was causing far more tedious fights, amidst friends and family. Neighbors. Acquaintances. Strangers. Many of the Aeesu-jin residence had never before experienced a transformation, were forced to deal with notions and instincts they never before had.

The original war had almost stopped, but now war tore its way to the very heart of the Underground.

It mattered little to two particular combatants.

A boy, engulfed in a warm, bright light.

And a man of lava hair and icy blue flesh.

They had been high enough in the Underground, the uppermost levels, that instead of being crushed beneath several thousand tons of rock as the mountain collapsed, they only vaguely became aware that they were lowering, like one in a descending elevator might feel a slight rise in his stomach.

It was not enough to make them even pause.

Their fantastic battle raged on.

The only event succeeded in causing the battle to pause was the death of the two entwined Tahch-jin brothers, who had dared to die in each other's arms, their consciousness so strengthened by one another that it send a powerful ripple through the chi of the planet, deeply shaking Gohan as he realized that something had gone amiss.

And then, the chi of the Tahch-jin existing on the planet gave a final sigh of resignation, and winked out without resistance under a brighter flash of Heng-tanged power.

They were dead, and Gohan, in his mildly altered Super Saiya-jin state, was beyond recognition of what he should feel -- he felt remorse for Joru. The man had aided him repeatedly, and yet at the same time bowed and loyally followed his maniacal brother through every turn. As for Henning Le'Armont... it was more than mere cold Saiya-jin instincts that felt pleased to feel his demise.

To the core of his being, he was glad to "see" him dead. Not even the pitiful voice of the human within him raised a hand against it. The man had needed to die. He was sick. The only regret -- and, admittedly, this probably _was_ his Saiya-jin side -- was that he hadn't been able to kill him personally.

The distraction of the sibling's death and the emotions accompanying it had taken only a split second, and yet that was all the time Bojack needed to rip a gaping hole through the boy's defenses, grab a handful of his thick dark hair, and pound four solid knuckles into his face nearly six times before he was able to tear free, leaving behind a handful of hair, bloodied at the roots.

He considered it Henning's final parting gift.

And good riddance.

The air was growing thick with dust and ash, congesting throats, as they had to breath through their mouths to get enough air into their bodies, spitting globs of black to the ground when it built up on the backs of their tongues. And where there was not ash and dust there presided the heavy residue of smoke and the bitter sweet stench of death and blood. The halogen lights had all been demolished in the intense heat building up from the molten chi, turning the Underground into a scalding furnace, though light was not needed in this battle, due credit given to the residing golden light, reflecting off walls where broken shadows of rapid movement interrupted it.

They barely were able to fill their lungs with enough pure oxygen from the filth in the air to collide again and again, the shock waves of their collisions overturning walls, destroying levels of eroded and eroding rooms. Overturning wooden tables, the lacquer of which was curling in the dry, blistering heat.

Bojack was stronger.

Bojack had decades more experience.

His body was bigger, his muscles more powerful, his arms longer, his chest broader, his bones thicker.

But for reasons Son Gohan could or did not bother considering, he was neither backing down, nor was he finding his gleaming saffron power depleting as the hopeless battle waged onward through the foul air and dark, broken halls.

The smoke and ash burned their eyes, giving Gohan that much of an advantage -- he didn't need to see. Keeping his eyes closed for the most part, his lids fluttering, he eased more into awareness of the awful chi around him. It was by this way that he felt the crushing power of the Biraju-jin ascend over his head to attack his already aching back.

He spun, driving his clenched hand into... a blocking elbow. Swung with the right, then -- blocked also. A gnarled blue fist closed in on him; he dodged right, his knee, no longer protected by the shredded and bloody remains of his body suit, arced upward, aiming where his hunter's instinct informed him his enemy's warm, wet vitals were stored. His subconscious cried for his foe to be vanquished, his body called for a swift kill, then to eat the still-warm body of his downed opponent to feed his starving facilities, nourish himself from his enemy's own power --

-- the knee jab was stopped by overlapping blue palms, the arms of which had elbows locked to avoid giving under the failed blow's momentum.

He squinted open his watering, irritated eyes to see a great Biraju-jin fist headed for his bloody little face -- _Block, dummy, block! _His sore, weary arms crossed over his face to protect, but the initial attack never came; _Kuso, a feint!_

The true attack came from below, mimicking the very attack he'd just attempted, striving to knee his stomach, ruin his guts, destroy his intestines; it came at enough speed the impact could possibly split his whole body open.

His eyes closed once again, not wanting to see his own worn, misshapen knuckles or bloody, burned, bruising flesh. He couldn't afford the distraction. Turning all control to his raging Saiya-jin instincts. _Concentrate on chi_... _there_. He slammed his small, powerful body shoulder-first into the broad, scarred chest of Bojack, who had failed to anticipate such a blatant, obvious maneuver -- the kid's movements were, after all, normally highly controlled and elaborate...

And yet, even then Bojack barely stumbled back before charging back to the fray.

There was that call for a higher power again, but the desire and need for it was growing too fast to be smothered by the simpering human within him...

What was it Tousan said to him? The last time he'd heard Tousan's voice... To fight... Bojack.

Ah.

_'Gohan_, ' the otherworldly voice had said, as though from a great distance, though he remembered it so very clearly and perfectly, _'show them your **true** power! Don't give up, you have to protect Chikyuu_...' 

He had been meaning the -- (...!) his subconscious tried to stop him, but it was too late and too weak now -- _other_ form, when he said 'true power'. The horrid one. The one that... changed him. Altered who he was and how he thought, disillusioned him in a way that, unlike his Super Saiya-jin form, he could not realize or stop until horrible deeds had already been accomplished.

Responsible for Tousan's death...

Rage unrestrained fueled him, and more vicious than before did he assault Bojack's defenses, driving the heel of his boot into that disenchanting blue face, hard enough that he actually _heard_ one of those teeth snap free from its holding. He tore in again, every limb he owned flying, as though trying to beat back past memories of anguish and humiliation and pain and horror and... Cell. And everything.

A blow to the head crumpled him to the ground, but only for a moment before he sprung back, attacking vitals, head and stomach and chest, blocking and dodging and... oh, yes, he was screaming, now. He hadn't noticed when he'd started. His hair was standing almost on edge all along his body, the thin coil of tail about his waist, dusted with gold, was twined so tight it hampered his breath.

_Don't give up, you have to protect Chikyuu_.

But he wasn't protecting Earth.

This battle had nothing to do with his mission. If anything, it was deterring their group from accomplishing the task the Kami Larkas had charged to them.

But he wasn't thinking of that. Instead, he was uncontrollably allowing his mind to go beyond Bojack, remembering deep in his mind the horrible, excited voice of Cell, '_Get angry! Doesn't this hurt? Your bones will break soon_..._ You can't possibly be pacifist enough to enjoy **this**_...'

Sharp Saiya-jin teeth on edge. A feral snarl amidst his rageful howls. When his well-packed fist struck the side of Bojack's head, the Biraju-jin found himself crashing to the ground, rolling on his shoulder, regaining his footing, stunned... and slightly afraid.

The kid was getting stronger.

* * *

The fine ashes of the deceased Tahch-jin brothers had not even a chance to settle before Heng stormed through them, swirling in curls of gray, following the shifting winds.

The great Aeesu-jin dictator then stood before the main computer, his skilled fingers, thick as sausages, were surprisingly nimble as they moved across the numerous keypads, his large, blood-red eyes constantly monitoring his progress as he slowly but surely moved his power back from the Tahch-jin -- they would no longer be needing it, after all, he though with a drastic chuckle -- and back to where it belonged, in the hidden consoles of Heaven.

Fortunately, the Le'Armont brothers had not had time to change anything in the programs, and the format was exactly as it had been when it belonged to the Aeesu-jin; they had not even bothered to filter out Heng's emergency codes, through which he accessed the utmost command and would, within a few good minutes, be in complete control again.

He intended to regain his power, and set things right. The Underground was collapsing, and that just wouldn't do; as it was, he was confident he could repair the extensive damage, but before that he knew full well he had to stop the damage being caused at its source. 

Specifically, and of first priority: turning the transformation inhibitor back on.

* * *

"We failed." A voice in the dark said. Freeza's voice, deepened slightly where his throat and vocals had expanded.

Beside him in the dark, holding the wall for support, stood Garlic, also transformed. He was roughly the same size as his Aeesu-jin companion. 

And he was roughly equally optimistic.

"Whether Son Gohan dies, now, or not doesn't matter," the Aeesu-jin went on, touching the pad of a finger against the sharp end of a curved horn... the horn he had once used to stab a small, bald human through the stomach. Hm. "This planet will be destroyed within a few hours more of this torment. It shall crack in half. In our own way, it was _us_ that destroyed this planet, if you think about it. That kami is probably kicking himself; it's his fault."

"I hate kamis," Garlic said, not particularly interested in following the conversation. His demon eyes allowed him to see reasonably well, even in the dark. But in truth, he was unwillingly following the patterns of raging chi dealing against one another below him. Trying to ignore the incomprehensible powers of the brat and the Biraju-jin raging a good mile down the hall.

"Well, _I _hate losing," Freeza returned, not bothering to be irritated for being ignored. Being aware of ones impending doom put him out of sorts. "And that's just what's going to happen. We lose."

* * *

_"Get angry!" _ Tousan had yelled.

_"Get angry!"_ Cell had yelled.

_Get angry_, both his human and Saiya-jin sides whispered confidentially.

Oh, and he was angry. The muscles of his slender neck felt bunched and eager; there was so much more power inside of him. So much more needed to be released, and he wasn't using it up fast enough. It ripped up his mind, strewn his thoughts into utter chaos, his hands shook with utter rage and terror. 

He was beating the enemy back, spinning, arching, ducking, parrying, blocking -- Bojack found himself unable to lay an attack on that small body. Motion was all Gohan was entirely aware of, the slashing arcs or punches and rounding kicks of feet and the sound of bone against bone and flesh against flesh, scenting blood; it was battle dominating his perceptions, and he hated it. He hated battle and he hated fighting and he hated killing and the smell of death and decay and the way his father had said good-bye and he hated Bojack for making him fight and he hated himself and he hated this stupid, _stupid_ planet and he hated Cell, he hated Cell with the depths of his tearing heart and he was _not _going to sit back and watch _as it all happened all over again!!_

A blue fist drove toward his face.

He stopped it with one hand.

Every ounce of power in his being, the tightness of his muscles, his undying rage, his thirst for revenge, his indignation at the cruel, unfair world, his soul, his spirit, pooling and boiling and seething, all inside and squirming and his chi fluxed so hard and hot that walls for nearly half a mile were laid flat, and, as it all reached the surface at once, a rolling bubble of utter passion, his back arched, head thrown back, face to the unseen heavens.

He screamed.

And he turned over the last ounces of self restraint and control; gave his entire being wholeheartedly to the _thing_, the twisting, shoving thing inside him, and the change was rapid as it grasped his body, expanding his power, increasing his size ever so slightly, his chi erupting into bright flashes, as though the very air friction against his chi caused bright sparks. His rising hair found new placement, all standing against their roots, tingling in his scalp. His tail confidently swung free from his waist, no longer just powdered at its tips, but flaxen to his very roots.

For the third time in his entire life, he gave way to something entirely inhuman.

The form beyond Super Saiya-jin.

* * *

Heng's large cheeks, illuminated in the monitor's light, rose as he smiled. Paused just a moment, studying the program before him, assuring himself that no alterations had been made.

And, with a final push, the inhibitor was turned back on.

* * *

Ascended Super Saiya-jin Son Gohan and interplanetary warrior Biraju-jin Bojack stared into eachother's hating eyes; Bojack's shrunken pupils burning with an aged, long life of anger and displeasure; Gohan's blank, almost emotionless eyes glowed like a green gas flame.

Bojack shuddered involuntarily, a hand covering a specific portion of his lower abdomen, where once long ago before his death a fist-sized hole had been punctured. Where Gohan had struck him on Earth. As the fiery golden demon, his power beyond even the Biraju-jin's extended memory. Hair swept back from his face, severe gaze harsh and hating, yet at the same time almost bored, or infinitely patient, as though the world and all residing in it mattered little compared to what was stored beneath those that icy void of an expression.

The very same as he who stood before the shaking Biraju-jin now. The very same. The same face and same chi and same hatred and same calm assurance that, yes, he was going to die now.

Bojack lowered into a defensive stance, as tight as he could.

The boy made no move. It didn't matter, the way he held himself was immaculate anyway; nothing could get through his barriers.

Bojack had seen it coming; he'd known all along that this boy would be the death of him. He had _known_! And yet he had still convinced himself that it wouldn't happen. The kusoyarobozu had been so weak this whole time, so small and so unable to defend himself. He had been so easy to dominate. So easy to antagonize. It had been so easy to hurt him. So easy to hit him. So easy to beat him and crush him and intimidate him.

Now, he only wished he _hadn't_ restrained himself from killing the boy. Brutally killing him. He had actually been repeatedly presented with the chance to get revenge for his death and torment in hell. The boy had been so powerless to defend himself, why hadn't he done it? Why had he not killed him?! Why had he stopped when he could have easily beaten the boy to death at his own leisure? It could have take hours, he could have made the boy truly suffer. Made him bleed. Made him cry. Made him beg. He could have...

But he hadn't. 

Like a fool, a raving, brainless fool, he hadn't. Even after the boy had begun his stages of transformation, had brought up the first metamorphosis from onyx to gold, why hadn't he killed him, then? Instead, he had stopped himself, holding back at the last possible second! Why? Because he was too afraid of his own mortality! Too afraid of dying to do what was supposed to be done.

Well, he wasn't about to charge against death again. He'd made that mistake on Earth; charging face first, belly open, totally convinced that it didn't _matter_ how much power the horrible, glowing little kid had, there was no way in hell he could _win!_

So he turned and ran, collecting his chi and projecting himself down the hall as fast as his massive body could travel.

Gohan charged after his prey -- yes, the man he now pursued struck him as little more than a helpless, awaiting victim. The only sound he made over the roar of wind as it whistled over his body, thin as a new blade of grass, was an almost subaudible rumble of warning from deep within his throat, which peaked at a snarl as a corner of his pale upper lip curled to display a few razor canines beneath, twisting the scar on his cheek.

Speeding after his prey, arm already rising to deliver a killing blow, his whole system fully prepared to accept the guilt that might possibly follow later. He hated Bojack. No less than Henning himself. He didn't care that the planet was dying all around him, over his head and beneath his feet. Let them all die. They were a cruel, uncaring race of cold-blooded lizards. They didn't matter in the least. He didn't care about them. Didn't know them. Didn't love them nor did they show much kindness to him.

He was going to kill Bojack. Hell to what might happen if he did. Cell? So what if he came back. He would kill him, too. And he would get it right this time, no one was there to distract him. No one would interfere. He would kill them all. Just watch him.

He increased his speed to maximum. Within a few seconds, he would be in range of Bojack's retreating back. He could plunge his small, boyish hand right through that thick red hair, into that thick blue neck. And tear out his throat and spine and jugular all in one deft sweep. And it would be over. And, this new form did not shy at all from the idea, he would be able to feed.

And then, all too suddenly, the speed in which he pursued was abruptly canceled.

His massive, blazing chi propelling him and the bright yellow aura illuminating his path, and his glorious power were cut short.

For but a split second, his still-blank, deadly green eyes observed himself as though underwater, moving much slower than it should have, as though in slow motion, loaded down and heavy with some awesome, unseen weights. In the same eternal second he saw ahead of him his prey, now suddenly and rapidly broadening the distance between the two of them.

And then his eyes, too, became limited in power. They and his bristled hair darkened and lost their sharp severity. And became black once again.

He had been jerked back to his generic state like a tethered dog that ran at full speed to escape, only to have its legs thrown out from under it as it reached the end of its leash and was torn forcefully back into captivity.

Only he was still propelling forward, unable to control his momentum now that his power had been beheaded. He was powerless to stop, like a rag doll thrown at high velocity by a powerful giant hand. Unable to even cancel his trajectory, he found himself heading rapidly toward the ground... and then he hit, tumbling head over ass possibly a dozen times, the flesh of his back and his arms slamming repeatedly into the hard floor, burning from the friction; limbs, arms, legs, tail all thrown out in panic. He only kept enough rationality to keep his head tucked in to avoid snapping his own neck.

In a last ditch effort to avoid sustaining any further damage, as his body spun to again smash his bottom against the ground, he threw down his heels, knees locked, and threw himself flipping rapidly over the ground instead of crashing across it. He made a desperate landing in a deep crouch, letting his springy legs cushion the impact, a hand against the ground to steady himself.

And then sank to his knees, leaned over to place his forehead against the trembling ground, and heaved a mighty sigh into the dust.

Attaining that second form had always taken an astronomical toll on Gohan's chi. And now, he found himself with nothing in return for the payment, other than that he was beyond exhaustion from not just from the rapid transforming, but all the fighting he'd done before. His system was in a mad tangle of confusion and terror, his still roaring anger, now impotent without the advantage of transformation to back it up. And the now louder, maddeningly practical human inclination to retreat and live to fight another day.

Breathing hard, he was merely biding his time keeping conscious, as slipping into a deep, heavy sleep was what he wanted most. To rest and allow his chi to replenish. And to eat a nice, large meal.

Or, were neither an option, death wasn't looking entirely unpleasant either, all things considered.

Life just wasn't striking him as entirely worth the effort of sustaining any more. Too difficult. He just wanted the anger - seeded with Saiya-jin disappointment at the loss of his Super Saiya-jin power - and the hatred and the fear and the pain and the hunger to go away. His body ached down through to his deepest bones; his muscles were sore and stiff. His palms were raw, the flesh of them having been burned badly. His knuckles were smashed and broken.

And, looking up, he saw that Bojack had noticed he was no longer being pursued.

The Biraju-jin had turned around; in actuality, he had decided running would do him no good, and wanted to face his death like the man he was, even if it would be a death delivered by one who had not even reached full manhood.

He hadn't expected to see the boy hunched over the ground, his glowing chi and awesome power and haunting, empty expression gone. He was black haired. And he looked somehow smaller. More worn. His utter Saiya-jin confidence had seeped out of him along with his unimaginable power.

He was nothing more than a boy again.

A small, helpless, fragile boy.

Bruised and subdued.

A desperate smile displaced the diagonal scar that ran over the bridge of his nose from cheek to brow. Was it some sick trick of his eyes? Was the brat playing a horrible game with him? It didn't matter. He wasn't taking chances. He had to kill him now, and quickly. No time to make it elaborate. No time to break those little bones and hear him scream, no time to see how long he could keep that little body alive and conscious under all the forms of torture he knew.

He had to kill him now.

Before anything else went wrong and delayed him.

He was willing to die as well. But he had to know, _had to know_, that he had also killed that boy.

Looking up a second time, Gohan watched as Bojack took to the air, and rocketed toward him. The look in his broad face expressed all to well a feeling Gohan knew too well, and recognized instantly. He was moving in for the kill. And had the confidence he would have that kill.

Well.

Gohan tore his aching little body off the ground. Well, he wasn't going to hold still and just accept it, no matter how tempting.

His speed pitiful now compared to that of his Super Saiya-jin form, he tore his way forward to meet Bojack. He was rushing to meet pain and death, but... well, he would meet it anyway. But he would meet it fighting. He would not lay still and allow himself to be killed. He would die as his father would die: Fighting. 

The final clash never occurred.

For, before he had a chance to lay a single blow more on the boy's abused and starved body, his eyes suddenly rolled back in his head, his mouth swung slack at his jaw, and he fell to the ground, his glorious chi cutting short like an interrupted breath, his giant body limp.

Gohan stopped instantly. 

And stared.

Then gave a short, disbelieving laugh.

He had seen enough corpses in his life to recognize the symptoms in a utterly disbelieving, stone-cold way. Bojack was dead. Were there any doubt left, he could already smell death seeping from his large, crumpled body. 

He just couldn't... understand... why.

But then he heard a voice he recognized, respected, hated and feared all at once: the unquestionable, irrefutable voice of the other dimentionary god. Kami Larkas-sama.

"_It's over now, Son Gohan. It's over. The planet Aeesu is no longer endangered by any person or body. You've succeeded_..._ by the very slightest of margin._"

**To be continued...**

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	41. CM41

**Contradicting Mission**

**Part 41**

"I made a wrong decision, Son Gohan. I can see that now."

Without any specific moment to mark its passing, the Underground was gone. It had vanished.

Where, before, one could see the trembling ground and the heavily shadowed halls, falling clumps of plaster and tile, vision was now replaced with the vast vacuum of empty space, rolling endlessly on into nothingness. Void of all existence save one, single individual.

The small form of a weary boy stood on solid matter that could not be distinguished, his battered and bruised body illuminated by no specific origin of lighting, his head hung low, pale, crimson-streaked face hidden among overhanging dark hair.

And then, suddenly but in no startling manner, there were two people occupying the void, empty habitant. Beside the boy, and slightly behind, stood a second figure. Much taller. Upright, framed by the long pale shadow of pure white hair; a scowl on his fair face, eyes shifting from an excited fuchsia to crimson red, then darkening for a while to black.

Kami Larkas.

"I should never have chosen you for the mission."

Gohan opened his eyes slowly in response to the voice; lashes, stuck together with dried blood, parting with difficulty. He was so very tired. He knew the kami was behind him. Vaguely felt his foreign chi, heard him breathing. He just didn't care at the moment. What he did care about was... that it seemed to be over? Dare he think it? He stopped the thought, filling his mind with a wide space as empty as the world around him, closing his eyes again.

"You succeeded in your mission by the most mediocre of standards; you saved the lives of billions of Aeesu-jin... but through the four of you alone, you have caused the deaths of millions. I find it difficult to want to thank you." The voice of the kami did not seem to hold the utmost sway as it once had. There was still power in it, but something in the kami's hanging shoulders, his curling hands, suggested exhaustion, strained or restraint or weary. He lacked something. Looked mortal. Frustrated, irritated, tired and mortal.

Like Gohan.

The boy tried to lift his head, to create a hurt expression of confusion, but didn't bother to. Curse all things relating to Saiya-jin. That form, that second form was responsible for his lack of will now. He'd only used it twice before, and both times it had taxed his chi nearly to death. "But..."

"The damage, however," the Kami went on saying, hands behind his back, chin tilted to the unknown atmosphere above as though talking more to himself, "is repairable. But it is taking all my power to do so. My concentration as limited as it is, I will not be able to heal you."

Heal... Gohan had forgotten almost entirely about the word. Growing up in a world where fighting and pain had been so common to him, he had also been so used to such swift, easy recovery... senzu seeds, magic healings... Oh, how easy it had been. But it had only taken the near-three weeks spent on Aeesu-sei to completely reprogram him. He had forgotten that there were other ways to heal than to wait for the body to do it on its own.

So he did not care.

However..., "The others?" They were the first words he had spoken, and they came out hollow and wooden, bouncing off no solid matter around him. He sounded muffled. It suited his state of mind. He felt overcome and defeated.

The kami looked away from him a moment, off into the deep nothingness in thought; his pale lips pressed together and he finally sighed, "Garlic and Freeza eventually did help in your endeavor... But as I have done for you, I will also do for them. Nothing. Freeza has been returned to the confines of hell, where his evil soul belongs. Of Garlic Junior... I removed his immortality. It was a sick existence he would hold with life; endless pain and death only to live to see it again. He is dead, now. And condemned to hell, where Bojack is also. I am unable to reward neither Garlic or Freeza more, though their doings on the planet were less horrible and resulted in less deaths than your own."

Gohan's eyes squeezed back together, and his weary arms hugged his starving body tightly, hands gripping opposing shoulders. The only power keeping him from collapsing at the words were pride. Pride of being his father's son. Of being trusted with carrying the name Son Gohan. The deaths... he hadn't thought of it. Not entirely. But... the body count that resulted directly from him were... unbearable. Crushing. The Aeesu-jin that had died in the war between Henning and Heng's men. That was in result of him, Henning's open pursuit of him. And the Aeesu-jin that had perished in the collapse of the Underground. It had been because he, himself, had insisted the transformation inhibitor be turned off.

It had been his own selfishness that caused it; he had wanted his Super Saiya-jin power. Had wanted it with such a burning desire he had not even considered what it might do to the rest of the planet. What was worse was that he hadn't even wanted to transform for a productive reason. He'd wanted to use it against Bojack. Deep down, that was all he wanted. And he had. He had accomplished nothing. Nothing at all.

Behind, tail hung limp and useless, fur smoothed into its grain.

How, then, had he succeeded? 

The kami's seeming knack to either read minds or guess correctly at thoughts arose, "You did little to bring on the final safety of that planet... and what you did do was done indirectly." He closed his eyes, white lashes downturned, "But you did do it. I apologize, I don't mean to be angry with you. It was my own fault to chose a mere boy for such a mission. The threat was the Tahch-jins. Both of them. To destroy one would only secure destruction in the other. 

"After repeated opportunities, you failed to eliminate either of their threats...," he paused now to look at the boy again, mouth open to scold him for his inadequacies, but something stopped him, seeing the stoop of his narrow shoulders, his slack hands, "Son Gohan, you are such a child still. I forget that when I think long on what you've done. Please look me in the eyes as I continue, to remind me... The Tahch-jin were destroyed by the Aeesu-jin guardian. Heng. Yes, the name is familiar to you. But even after the removal of the original threats the planet was not safe, for you had put it in equal danger through your hasty need to transform. Again, the Aeesu-jin guardian protected his planet. There is no longer a threat existing toward the planet, your reality, or mine."

He said nothing, his fathomless eyes continuing to travel over the boy's face, pinched in the corner, eyeing the horrible bruises that covered him, the blood and the scars, the gentle wheezing he emitted when he exhaled. The heavy bags under his eyes. Traveled down his reed thin form, down his cracked and bleeding shell of a body, constructed of nothing more than sinew and bone. Finally he said, "I should not have chosen you to go. And worse, I should not have sent Bojack with you. For all that he did to you, I offer an apology. For not destroying him sooner, for being unable to intervene, though I'd been watching you since you first set foot on the planet. I am sorry. From the deepest of my heart."

Finally, Gohan responded, hands half-curling at his sides before relaxing as he spoke, "Do one thing for me."

Deliberate hesitation, then, finally, a flash of blue around dark pupils, a response, "Name it and I shall try."

* * *

Purple and green grass down-turned under a hard pressure of hot air, then singed and burned themselves black. A white, egg-shaped ship, ringed with circular blue-tinted windows, slowly but surely lifted off the face of a planet and after what felt like a millennia, it broke the atmosphere, suffering little turbulence, and then was free.

Floating weightlessly through gleaming, starry space.

From the interior, looking out at the expanse of endless vacuum, was the reflection of Sunow. He was no longer on the planet Aeesu-sei. And though his hands trembled, with the advance warning and some helpful words from the good doctor, he fought his natural call to transform.

He was an Off-planet, now. He would have no other choice but to control that element of his nature from this day forward, and forever into eternity as long as he lived. Which, by his species standards, would be a very, very long time.

He listened with half an ear as Doctor Koda, with his deep, controlled voice, was trying to talk Forester and Eesei out of their own transformations. And though they had not yet begun to figure out how to convert back to their generic forms, they were not berserk. Merely curious. Perhaps afraid of what had come of their bodies. Forester's voice said something that his father did not catch, to which Eesei laughed nervously. Yes, they would be all right in the end.

In time, they would get control. All off-planet Aeesu-jin children did. Sunow was not concerned on the matter. Looking out the port hole, watching as the jets at the bottom of the egg-shaped ship lit up, and the planet Aeesu-sei grew gradually smaller, until it was nothing more than a small purple-tinted speck, no larger in view than the distant burning stars.

It amazed him, in a matter of two days, since half of the Underground had collapsed, and survivors and less lucky bodies were still being dug out of the rubble of the planet's most tragic disaster in all of its recorded history, how the good doctor had been able to so easily purchase such a ship. It was almost as though he'd been planning to leave, even before Son Gohan had ever graced their lives. Somewhere between those first confusing hours of searching for his children in the wild rolling winds of the Aeesu prairie, and their departure now, Koda had mentioned an Off-planet brother.

Perhaps they would look for him, now.

There was no other plan, after all, in which they had to follow. They were free. No longer needing to worry about assignments. No more worrying about breaking laws or getting arrested or death sentences. No more Backlash. Or Heng. The heavy shackles Sunow had been carrying his whole life without even knowing it had been removed, presenting to him a freedom he did not know existed, and would have in any other situation feared. Any time before, he would have thought becoming a self-exiled Aeesu-jin would be humiliating. Degrading. But he felt proud. Proud to so willingly turn away from the wrong acts the Aeesu-jin people committed without thought.

He remembered, thoughtfully, a conversation he'd had with Son Gohan. It felt like so long ago, now, since the time he had first seen that shy Saiya-jin boy standing in his door way, looking so helpless and uncertain. Or sitting in that restaurant, his thin furry tail twined about his chair's legs, where they had spoken.

'_We can't have peace if one Aeesu-jin is out killing another_.' Sunow recalled saying, so easily, so matter-of-factly.

The boy never seemed to have to think on what to say. He just said it, and it always caught you off guard in spite of the impossibly soft, gentle tone he used, '_What about people that aren't Aeesu-jin? Is it illegal to kill one of your slaves?_'

At that time, he had been unable to respond. Though he knew the answer well.

And with that quiet, soft voice, the issue was pressed, '_If an Aeesu-jin killed me, would it be breaking the rules?_'

The answer had to be given: '_No_.'

Elbows resting on the window's thin sill, chin resting in hands, as he watched the planets and stars and moons, with their many lovely rings, fly so speedily past the ship. There was perhaps an extra gleam of moisture in his eye as he thought of Son Gohan now. He had been so young and small and quiet, and yet at the same time so enigmatic. He had a power inside of him Sunow had never seen before in one so young. And yet at the same time, by his posture, the way he held his head, he seemed defeated before even stepping up to a fight.

But he was surely dead by now. Killed when the Underground collapsed, along with all the other Aeesu-jin. Or if he survived, he would either starve, buried and bruised under the rubble, or be killed if he was found before that. There had been no way to help him. And though it greatly saddened him, Sunow was proud that, at the risk of destroying his own planet, he had followed through with the boy's last request.

Perhaps in death, his young soul would find peace at last.

"Good luck... Son Gohan," he whispered into the far reaches of space, his breath clouding the glass for a moment.

And then as the fogged reflection cleared, he became aware through his vision in the blue tinted glass that someone was standing behind him. Someone too tall to be either of his children. Someone much too short and too thin to be the good doctor. Someone with wild, bristly short hair. Dark hair. And a gray-blue, shredded body suit...

He realized the good doctor was no longer talking. He heard Forester gasp.

"Sunow-san?" It was more acknowledgment than a question. A voice, high-toned, soft and refined but heavy with exhaustion.

The green Aeesu-jin father felt as though it were in slow motion that he turned, delicate lips parted in wonder, eyes wide as they could possibly go, and once he'd finished his complete half circle, his back now to the window, the entire world around him, his children, now quiet with their shock, the large round form of the Aeesu-jin doctor, space itself, the ship, the stars, everything _froze_, as this new figure aboard the ship was recognized.

"Son Gohan!"

It was never made clear exactly who yelled it, for in each person's head they had mentally screamed the same two words. 

And then all peace and unity and the joining of all things in surprise broke and shattered into a million pieces as each individual moved on their own account, voices filling the ship, greetings, questions, shouts of joy, of surprise, of celebration and congratulation; they were packed in around the boy, patting him on the back, ruffling his hair, touching his arms and his hands, looking into his eyes to make sure that it honestly was him, that it really was, entirely out of the empty space, the same child they had all assumed dead or at the mercy of the merciless Heng.

And though the tight space and the seeming thousands of voices and the feeling of good-natured fingers obviously made the boy nervous, frightened him, he couldn't help but to smile his small, polite but amazingly warm smile, laughing a quiet, breathy laugh, tolerating the overwhelming attention, Eesei held in his thin arms. His dark, sharp eyes, dulled with exhaustion but still bright as sparkling twin stars, were centered on the two adults, Sunow and the good doctor, in a knowing, silent way.

The noise slowed down as an awareness passed through them, even to the smallest child Eesei. A sense of confusion and awe and wonder and... sadness.

But it was the smallest child, her tail coiled around the boy's waist, that finally voiced it, "Where'd Son Gohan come from?" She looked at her father, then her brother, as though wondering if she had asked something inappropriate, "Was'n he on Aeesu-sei...?"

Gohan looked her in the eyes a moment, gaze unwavering, then looked back up again, "I can't stay long. I just... wanted to say good bye. And thank you. Thank all of you." He squeezed the tiny girl in his arms, then set her down again. 

"You're finally leaving then." The good doctor's words were statements, not questions. 

"Yes," the boy said, a ghost of his former smile on his lips, though somehow this limited expression seemed more sincere. Better summed the true emotions he felt. His eyes did not hold any promise of smile. "I'm finally done. Your pl... The planet Aeesu is safe. I can go home."

Slowly, deliberately, so as not to cause him to draw away, Doctor Koda extended his arm and put a thumb and forefinger to the boy's chin, turning his head one way and another, a haunting look of sickness in his eyes as he took in with a medic's eye the extent of injuries on this pale face alone, taking the liberty to lift his hair off his forehead, pretending to not notice the way the boy battled with terror and the urge to flinch away, to not notice the way he trembled with someone so large at so close a proximity. And the ghostly look in his large dark eyes, the notion that there was nothing behind them, or if there was it would take a long fall into them to find it. One could get lost if they entered those eyes, those windows to his battered and subdued soul. Even the boy seemed partially lost within himself.

Some damages took longer a time to heal, even if they could not be seen. And, perhaps, some scars never did fade away. But he could hope. Hope that all injuries would fade... with time.

"I'm glad." Was all he said, nodding his head, his great curved horns cutting the air. "Though I do not know what planet you call home, nor would I dare to ask. I pray you never have to return to Aeesu-sei again. Live in peace, Son Gohan." And, at an arms length, he offered a hand.

The boy's own hand, less than half the size of the doctors, took it and, his small fingers lost in Koda's, they shook, eyes meeting eyes, blood red meeting sleight black. And then their hands parted. They would never meet again.

And Gohan suddenly became aware that Forester was now standing before him, hands fisted at his sides, dark lips pushed together into a thin green line. The strain he used to keep the glittering tears to stay within the confines of his eyes shook his entire body. "I'm... glad you're not dead." His voice was higher than usual, though he tried to keep it deep and mature, his next words rushed, "And I _do_ hope that Bojack is dead. I hope he died horribly... and _suffered_... and... and _bled_..."

"Please," Gohan said, quiet voice desperate, taking each of Forester's hands and shaking them, "If you hate him, don't _be_ like him. Don't hold onto hate... don't wish pain or suffering on anyone. Just... just enjoy peace when you have it, don't _squander_ it on hopes of death and destruction. You're alive, and your sister is alive and," he was battling his own tears, now, though one escaped him and slowly rolled over the coagulated blood on his cheek, "And _your father_ is still alive. Forester, you have _everything_ that you'll ever truly need on this ship right now. Don't desire for anything else, _especially_ for the unhappiness of another."

Forester swiped the back of his arm over his eyes and held it there a moment, his breath irregular, "Okay, Son Gohan. If... if that is the only thing you're going to ask of me, then... I'll honor it." Lowering his arm from his face, meeting, searching Gohan's eyes, "Don't _you_ hate Bojack at least? After everything he's done to you, after... after hitting you like that, you deserve the right to... don't _you_ at least get to hate him?"

The Saiya-jin boy was silent for a spell, his tears quelling themselves, the Aeesu-jins around him not prompting him, but each wishing for an answer, silent themselves as they weighed the limits of their own souls. Finally, the only reply, "Bojack is dead. I saw him die, right before me. I... will ask for nothing more than that."

"You kill 'im?" Eesei asked, head canted at an angle; never before had she entirely comprehended the word 'kill' before meeting Gohan. But she understood it. And perhaps it was she, alone, that harbored no desire of destruction upon anyone or anything. She only wanted her Papa and her brother For'ster, and... and her extended brother Son Gohan to be happy. For everyone to be happy.

And she was still too young to realize that such a thing was impossible.

"No." Gohan said, kneeling down to her level, hugging her around her little body, holding her tightly, remembering his own little brother, "No, I did not kill him. And I'm... glad that I did not. Never kill. There is nothing good about it. Nothing good in killing. Don't do it. Don't you ever do it, or let your brother do it, or your Papa or anyone. Hate killing. Hate death. Hate pain. Just... just do what you believe in your heart is right."

"I w'll," her high-pitched voice was muffled in his shoulder, and though she did not entirely understand the great expanse of what he was asking, and though she was only two, at the border of three, she would remember his words, for the duration of her long life. And would carry them close. And honor her promise. As would her brother.

And in her young mind, she would for years remember the way his warm-blooded arms felt when he wrapped them around her cold-blooded reptilian body. And she did not entirely notice when he let go of her. And she was not aware of anything else hours later, after Son Gohan had vanished from the ship and her life and her universe entirely, forever.

Sunow had said very little, and still said very little, even as he stood, face to face, with the boy he had thought dead. "Son Gohan." And he offered his small, pale green hand, as the good doctor had done. 

The boy walked passed the extended hand and wrapped his arms around the Aeesu-jin's shoulders. And closed his eyes. And, soundless and unnoticed by the boy, more warm tears ran down his face, dripped from his chin, and onto the Aeesu-jin father's shoulder. This Aeesu-jin father, who had spoken to him when no one else found reason to bother to. This Aeesu-jin father who gave his entire life up, everything he had but his two children, just to aid him. 

The Aeesu-jin father who had given him an opportunity to have a warm bath and a drink of hot coffee when he had been cold. 

The Aeesu-jin father who had been his friend.

"Thank you," was all he said, "Thank you."

And it was all that needed to be said.

And then, flinching, turning his head to a side as though hearing a noise none else could, "I have to go now."

He stepped back from them all as they bunched together, and he said to himself, _Click_. And closed his eyes, ingraining the mental image of the four of them from the insides of his eyelids to his powerful memory: Forester, tears trailing down his cheeks, looking down, fists curled at his sides as he finally gave way to tears that pride had always battled before. The good doctor, Doctor Koda, his large orange frame and curved bullhorns and immense chest and stomach, long tail poised behind him. Eesei, eyes closed, head tilted back as though in deep thought, fingers relaxed at her sides, tail slack against the ground. Sunow. Sunow, looking him square in the eyes, caring and careful, his delicate green lips turned up in a smile of fondness._ Now_. _Now, forever, I will keep a photograph of them in my head_._ I won't forget a single detail_. _Not ever_.

But by that time, he was no longer on the ship. No longer in that space. No longer in that time. And no longer on such a task that went against his very principles, no longer required to accomplish something his entire being was against from the depths of his soul.

No longer on such a contradicting mission, of pain and torment and... and affection for what would have been the considered to him the enemy for all time. Of two brothers, dead, without bodies left behind to ever mark the passing of their existence.

* * *

A phone was ringing.

There were no phones on Aeesu-sei. There were computer terminals. And no sunlight. The warmth felt now, and the shade of the warmth, were not creations of the sunlight on Aeesu-sei's surface.

A phone was still ringing.

The smell of... oak. And maple trees. And the fresh smell of blue spruce and cedar.

Those trees did not grow on Aeesu-sei.

The ringing continued.

But there were no phones on Aeesu-sei.

But someone really ought to answer it. Feeling along the wall... up to the phone cradle, feel the vibrations of the ringing through the receiver. Ringing...

"Hello?"

"Gohan! What happened over there, anyway? Did you drop the phone or something?"

"I... I was..."

"... Gohan?"

"Kuririn-san..."

"Woops, sorry, but I have to go. Juuhachi and I are going to catch a movie. Good luck with your studying! Catch ya later!"

_Click_.

A vision of Aeesu-jin faces. An Aeesu-jin boy, crying, head turned downward under tears...

His shoulder ached. His left shoulder. It always ached on days with high humidity... ever since stepping in front of Cell's blast... To save Vegita-san. Who was going to be killed. Like Sunow-san. Killed by Backlash because...

No, that was a different time.

His tail went to wind around his leg.

He had no tail. Not for a long time. Hadn't since... No, it had curled between his legs after a humiliating beating... Blue fists, lava hair... with rain soaking his Saiya-jin body suit.

Slowly, he re-hung the phone on its cradle.

There were no phones on Aeesu.

He finally realized that his eyes were still closed. He hadn't opened them yet. Not since... since taking a "picture" of Sunow, Forester, Eesei and Doctor Koda. On Aeesu... no, on a space ship. They were Off-planets...

He opened his eyes.

To a vision of his own living room. _His living room_. Not... not his capsule house... his capsule house living room was destroyed. By the Tahch-jin...

He took his first steps in this room, when he was hardly a year old. He had slept on his father's warm chest on lazy winter days in this room, watching the fire place spit with the still-wet wood it burned. He ate a bowl of grapes in this room once, and watched as it hailed outside the window, creating such an amazing sound as it struck the roof.

It was in this room that he had told his mother that his father was not coming home from a certain fight. That he was not coming home ever, because he had given his life for...

He was on his knees, running his hands along the planks of wood of the floor, pulling a floor rug to his face, smelling it, smelling his mother on it. And his brother. And if he concentrated hard enough he could still smell his father, though it had been two years since he had last been in the house... 

He was crying. Silently. In mourning anew. In relief. In grief. Because he could. In his own house. Not wedged between two boulders, bruised and battered, covering his head in case any new blows chose to rain down on him, as the heavens also rained down on him...

Bruised...

He was no longer bruised. Through his tears, he looked to his arms, his legs, his body. He had on his gi. His orange and blue gi, fashioned after his father's. His flesh was only covered in old scars. No new cuts. No new bruises. Not even a single rip in his armband. Rolled over onto his bottom, pulled his pant leg out of his boot, rolled it up. No messy scar on his leg. No hole where a blast of chi had once torn clear through it.

His left shoulder hurt in the humidity. Where he had taken a blast from Cell. His fingers rested on it. But... it had been healed by... Kami Larkas.

He and the kami had spoken. Spoken more. 

He rose to his feet again, stumbled to the bathroom, leaned over the sink, looked himself in the eye.

And rose his hand to trace a finger along the thin, deep scar on his cheek. Where an Aeesu-jin tail had once caught him.

_"I am sending you home now, Son Gohan."_

He couldn't take his eyes off the boy in the mirror.

_"I cannot heal you. But_..._"_

A boy he did not know... Pale skin, dark hair.

_"I can return you to as you were. As though I had never before healed you. As though you never had met me."_

_"Arigatou_..._ **Wait**, not yet. I_..._ Leave something behind. This scar on my face. So that I don't forget. So that I cannot make myself forget_..._"_

Tears on his cheeks. Eyes red. He splashed cool water over his face, then again, watching as the droplets fell from his cheeks. From his chin. From his bangs. In his front pocket, he felt his capsule case. The Tahch-jin had stolen it. But he had it back.

Were he to open it, he knew the living room would still be wreaked.

He removed the case and set it on the toilet. He didn't want it right now.

He went to his room, where he found it as he had left it. Went to his closet, got out a white house shirt, embroidered on the sleeves with the small, white bell-shaped flowers of lily of the valley. Black slacks. Took them off their hangers, and removed his gi, hung it up with care. Pulled on the house clothes. His mother had bought them for him. He could smell her on them.

And sat down at his desk, where the work his mother had asked him to do was half way done. He picked up his pencil in his right hand, and began to write, his left hand cupping his cheek, finger tracing the scar there. Thinking of a boy's pale green face, streaked with tears. Of a little girl's canted head, pink and young and thoughtful. Of a father, whose horns curved behind him like a ram, looking him in the eye, corners of his delicate mouth turned upward. Of a doctor, a _good_ doctor, who had once taken him to see Saiya-jins. And who had dragged him out of a resulting riot with his own two large, orange arms. 

Hours later, the high, loud voice of his little brother would fill the house, echo to his room. And the voice of his mother, and her soft foot steps and the rustle of paper sacks, calling for him to come help her carry in groceries, asking him how his studying had gone.

And he would go down to greet them. Without a sound or a word, he would wrap his arms around them both. 

And say, "Hai, Okaasan. My studying went well. Kuririn-san called, but I didn't talk long. You sit down, I'll carry in the rest of the groceries."

And would not answer her when she asked what had happened to his face. Until after the scar had faded and she forgot about it. But he could still feel it, if he put his finger tips to it.

Click.

And would still remember four Aeesu-jin faces. One smiling. One crying. One thoughtful. One wise.

And two Tahch-jin chi's, merged into one, snuff like a candle.

_What are you_... _a __**coward**__?!_

_No, Tousan. Not anymore._

_I've done so much, all by myself. _

_So you'll forgive me, won't you?_

_Tousan?_

**The End**

**Previous Part**** -- ****Contradicting Mission**

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	42. Final Author's Note

Well, here I am, sitting quietly atop the third year anniversary of Contradicting Mission with much to reflect upon. In truth, I don't remember what it was that sparked its original conception; I would simply walk home from school each day, poor, carless soul that I was, and would wonder and scheme not plots but simple, idle ideas that were meant for myself and only myself.

These personal, private schemes were the inner-most skeletal structure of CM.

Contradicting Mission was both a personal experiment, as well as my reply to every generic fanfic out there. I have been reading DBZ fanfiction for a good six years or so now, and have, surely, read just about every 'typical' fanfic in existance. So, pooling all of my own personal pet-peeves into one, large lists of 'Don'ts', I started CM off with those standards. Of the Don'ts:  
  
**No Romance.** I admit, it was a biased, personal decision. But I despise romance, and I consider it a farce. It is not written as an expression of care and concern between to people. Rather, DBZ writers either obsess over it, making the characters unable to think about anything other than the character the author wants to force them to like ("Though he had only known her for a day, he felt a strong urge to protect/love/kiss/have dreams about/talk to/kill for her." Bleh.) or they use it as a plot device (ie, having a character's beloved killed, so that they can advance in power another transformation or two.) To me, romance is a very fickle subject that only tends to lead to extreme out of characterness (ie, Vegeta being gentle and kind when around Bulma, which is, excuse my language, a steamy load of shit; another example would be for Gohan to suddenly behave 'cocky' or 'arrogant' when defending Videl's honor or some horribly monsterous other misconception.) Indeed, I refused to even add the almost required addition of "the sassy, independant chick who can take care of herself" which can be found in every (mark me, every) fic that involves a different location than earth.  
  
Easiest way to solve this problem: Don't even include a female character. Aeesu-jin are entirely without gender, and though there might be some dispute about Eesei, there is no denying that love and romance played no part in my story.  
  
**No Super Saiya-jins.** I did eventually break this rule, in the last few parts of CM, but that was after I felt sufficient time had gone by without. (The Super Saiya-jin was only featured in two parts. And 2/41 is not bad.). I think Super Saiya-jins are over-done, especially in action/adventure genres. They appear, basically, as frequently as the author feels like it. Always with their "golden auras" and the "teal/aquamarine eyes" and always, even if it's Gohan, they end up "smirking" or being random badasses. I got fedup with it. So, to avoid getting pinned down under such an area, I simply made Super Saiya-jin's impossible.  
  
**No Super-ultimate-unstoppably-powerful Villain.** I was tired of the villain simply being stronger than the hero. Yes, having a superior antagonist does make it easier to have a plot... a very simple, 'every-DBZ-movie-plot', that is 1.)Bad guy/s come and are stronger than the protagonist/s 2.)Protagonist finds a way to win, either through a period of time spent training, or transformation or fusion or some technique or through the sudden and timely enterance of the author's other favorite character to help out. 3.)Protagonist/s then defeat the enemy, often with a lot of smirking and clever one-liners, usually ending with everyone passing out from exhastion in the end, followed usually by an epilogue taking place a week or two later showing either some random, not-very-funny scene, often involving 'bit players' like Roshi or Oolong ect. I managed to avoid this 'typical bad guy' by creating Henning. He wasn't stronger than Gohan in the least. He was simply very, very lucky.   
  
**The Variable-element Character.** Always in fanfiction, there are two sects of characters: The Good Guys and the Bad Guys. A character can either stay Bad, where eventually his miserable, vile existance is ended by the Good Guy/s, or at some random turning point a Bad Guy will change his ways, see the light, ect, blah, and join the Good Guys for the rest of the story. So Joru came to be. He was never truely bad, egotistical, yes, maybe a bit cowardly, ethnocentric, but his intentions were not truely evil, while at the same time no where near Good. Throughout CM, he dipped in and out of "Good" and "Bad", staying with his brother, while unable to keep himself from helping Gohan at certain intervals though in the end, he finally decided to stay loyal to his brother over all else.  
**  
In-Depth Character Development.** I could never stand it when the writers refused to explain a character's deeper thoughts. Sure, it could be explained what was on the top of their heads, minute to minute thoughts ("He assumed-" or "He mistakenly thought-" or "He realized-") But none of it was pick-them-apart-with-tweezers explanations of why. What goes on underneath their skin. What small memories spur them into action? What thoughts go through their heads to push them into doing things they would not nomally be mentally or physically capable of doing? None of this "he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly and smiled" crap, which in no way furthers plot, sparks interest, or helps a reader (or writer for that matter) to better understand the character. I refused to cop out and slink into the steriotypical character traits of "if the character is truely evil, he does not feel fear or regret!" or "when the protagonist is stronger than anyone else, he has nothing to worry about!"  
  
I think it was partially by following these Don'ts that CM became as marginally successful as it did. By avoiding such common fanfiction traits, I left room for more surprises. (Surprise, by the last five or so parts, was the major element I was aiming for, to the point that I was going as outrageous as I could. It burned my stamina and scortched my conscience to the point that I almost ended the entire series prematurely by simply having the entire planet destroy itself, thus having the entire contradicting mission have been an absolute failure and the entire world ending. Fitting, wouldn't it have been? Fortunately, my beta, Rebecca W. -- the only girl in the universe who knows what I'll be doing ahead of time in my series -- convinced me to take a small break and think it through.)  
  
And in the end (this I was very pleased about) I managed to by-pass the entire "hero gets strong, hero destroys enemy, hero saves the day", by not having the hero, Gohan, destroy any enemy. At all, really. He did nothing to bring about the end of the story; he just happened to be there when it happened, because I honestly don't believe that just because one person is the strongest he is the one that always gets to stop the fighting and end the threats and so on and so forth. Sure, some of the time but not every single time. In fact, in the end of CM, the only truely 'wicked' character, Heng, didn't die at all. No one killed him. He lived on. And yet more ironic, it was Heng who saved the day in the end, both by destroying the Tahch-jin and by reinstating the temporal ban on transformation, right in the nic of time, too. My entire point was to make things happen that weren't expected to happen. To keep the reader on their toes.   
  
I have my own reserves about CM (especially the earlier parts, which I wrote when I was only fifteen, with only my scruples to guide me but not much talent to back myself up) but I am deeply proud of it, if only because it lasted me for three years now, rounded the turn over fourty parts, and was completed with a perfect degree of finality. I have no intention of continuing it.

Well. There's that, then.

Of all, I need to thank a few people:

First of all, I need to thank my beta, Rebecca Waesch, not only for all the (utterly strange) art she's since drawn for me, and for reading over each part of CM and picking at it to keep away the worst of the typos. For letting me bounce off ideas, and keeping me from making too many... rash... decisions.

Also, Gohan's Girl, author of Dragon Ball: Saiya-jin Team, for staying up all night discussing normally un-thought-of aspects of DBZ and it's players.

Daughter of Chaos, for being a long-time email friend, inspiring writer and talented artist.

And Mike Steele, whose utter madness was responsible for driving me out to create my own website, and continually offering technical support for its maintainance. (His crazed person aside, _naturalich_.)

It goes without say, of course, that I owe a lot of CM's continuation to all the people that reviewed and sent emails egging me on; I don't know if I write for them or to spite them, but despite which, they were by far the fuel which burned my fires of productivity.

Thanks, everyone. It was a blast. Let's see if Variation Elements can keep up to par.


End file.
